Late into the night, Alessandro and Ramona sat by their sleeping baby and discussed what should be her name. Ramona wondered that Alessandro did not wish to name her Majella.
“No! Never but one Majella,” he said, in a tone which gave Ramona a sense of vague fear, it was so solemn.
They discussed “Ramona,” “Isabella.” Alessandro suggested Carmena. This had been his mother's name.
At the mention of it Ramona shuddered, recollecting the scene in the Temecula graveyard. “Oh, no, no! Not that!” she cried. “It is ill-fated;” and Alessandro blamed himself for having forgotten her only association with the name.
At last Alessandro said: “The people have named her, I think, Majella. Whatever name we give her in the chapel, she will never be called anything but 'Eyes of the Sky,' in the village.”
“Let that name be her true one, then,” said Ramona. And so it was settled; and when Father Gaspara took the little one in his arms, and made the sign of the cross on her brow, he pronounced with some difficulty the syllables of the Indian name, which meant “Blue Eyes,” or “Eyes of the Sky.”
Heretofore, when Father Gaspara had come to San Pasquale to say mass, he had slept at Lomax's, the store and post-office, six miles away, in the Bernardo valley. But Ysidro, with great pride, had this time ridden to meet him, to say that his cousin Alessandro, who had come to live in the valley, and had a good new adobe house, begged that the Father would do him the honor to stay with him.
“And indeed, Father,” added Ysidro, “you will be far better lodged and fed than in the house of Lomax. My cousin's wife knows well how all should be done.”
