I
At Santa Ysabel del Mar the season was at one of those moments
when the air rests quiet over land and sea. The old breezes were gone; the
new ones were not yet risen. The flowers in the mission garden opened
wide; no wind came by day or night to shake the loose petals from their
stems. Along the basking, silent, many-colored shore gathered and
lingered the crisp odors of the mountains. The dust hung golden and
motionless long after the rider was behind the hill, and the Pacific lay like
a floor of sapphire, whereon to walk beyond the setting sun into the East.
One white sail shone there. Instead of an hour, it had been from dawn till
afternoon in sight between the short headlands; and the Padre had hoped
that it might be the ship his homesick heart awaited. But it had slowly
passed. From an arch in his garden cloisters he was now watching the last
of it. Presently it was gone, and the great ocean lay empty. The Padre put
his glasses in his lap. For a short while he read in his breviary, but soon
forgot it again. He looked at the flowers and sunny ridges, then at the huge
blue triangle of sea which the opening of the hills let into sight.
"Paradise," he murmured, "need not hold more beauty and peace. But I
think I would exchange all my remaining years of this for one sight again
of Paris or Seville. May God forgive me such a thought!"