The day itself had been singularly quiet and gracious, even for that rare climate of balmy days and recuperating nights.  At times the slight breath of the sea which usually stirred the morning air of Todos Santos was suspended, and a hush of expectation seemed to arrest land and water.  When Miss Keene and Mrs. Markham left the Presidio, the tide was low, and their way lay along the beach past the Mission walls.  A walk of two or three miles brought them to the Indian village—­properly a suburban quarter of Todos Santos—­a collection of adobe huts and rudely cultivated fields.  Padre Esteban and Mr. Hurlstone were awaiting them in the palm-thatched veranda of a more pretentious cabin, that served as a school-room.  “This is Don Diego’s design,” said the Padre, beaming with a certain paternal pride on Hurlstone, “built by himself and helped by the heathen; but look you:  my gentleman is not satisfied with it, and wishes now to bring his flock to the Mission school, and have them mingle with the pure-blooded races on an equality.  That is the revolutionary idea of this sans culotte reformer,” continued the good Father, shaking his yellow finger with gentle archness at the young man.  “Ah, we shall yet have a revolution in Todos Santos unless you ladies take him in hand.  He has already brought the half-breeds over to his side, and those heathens follow him like dumb cattle anywhere.  There, take him away and scold him, Dona Leonor, while I speak to the Senora Markham of the work that her good heart and skillful fingers may do for my poor muchachos.”

Eleanor Keene lifted her beautiful eyes to Hurlstone with an artless tribute in their depths that brought the blood faintly into his cheek.  She was not thinking of the priest’s admonishing words; she was thinking of the quiet, unselfish work that this gloomy misanthrope had been doing while his companions had been engaged in lower aims and listless pleasures, and while she herself had been aimlessly fretting and diverting herself.  What were her few hours of applauded instruction with the pretty Murillo-like children of the Fort compared to his silent and unrecognized labor!  Yet even at this moment an uneasy doubt crossed her mind.

“I suppose Mrs. Brimmer and Miss Chubb interest themselves greatly in your—­in the Padre’s charities?”

The first playful smile she had seen on Hurlstone’s face lightened in his eyes and lips, and was becoming.

“I am afraid my barbarians are too low and too near home for Mrs. Brimmer’s missionary zeal.  She and Miss Chubb patronize the Mexican school with cast-off dresses, old bonnets retrimmed, flannel petticoats, some old novels and books of poetry—­of which the Padre makes an auto-da-fe—­and their own patronizing presence on fete days.  Providence has given them the vague impression that leprosy and contagious skin-disease are a peculiarity of the southern aborigine, and they have left me severely alone.”

“I wish you would prevail upon the Padre to let me help you,” said Miss Keene, looking down.