The cochero observed with sadness that the race of little paper animals disappeared each year, as if they had been attacked by the pest like the living animals.

He, the abused Sinong, remembered his two magnificent horses, which, at the advice of the curate, he had caused to be blessed to save them from plague, spending therefor ten pesos--for neither the government nor the curates have found any better remedy for the epizootic--and they had died after all.

Yet he consoled himself by remembering also that after the shower of holy water, the Latin phrases of the padre, and the ceremonies, the horses had become so vain and self-important that they would not even allow him, Sinong, a good Christian, to put them in harness, and he had not dared to whip them, because a tertiary sister had said that they were _sanctified_.
The procession was closed by the Virgin dressed as the Divine Shepherd, with a pilgrim's hat of wide brim and long plumes to indicate the journey to Jerusalem.

That the birth might be made more explicable, the curate had ordered her figure to be stuffed with rags and cotton under her skirt, so that no one could be in any doubt as to her condition.

It was a very beautiful image, with the same sad expression of all the images that the Filipinos make, and a mien somewhat ashamed, doubtless at the way in which the curate had arranged her.