n was there; and he hoped never to see that library again. But
was there ever a lover in whom necessity did not develop the genius of
invention? Dario flashed upward a glance of hope, then took from his
pocket a slip of the rice-paper used for making cigaritos. He burnt a
match, and with the charred stump scrawled a few lines.

"Elena! Mine! Star of my life! My sweet! Beautiful and idolized.
Farewell! Farewell, my darling! My heart is sad. God be with thee.

"DARIO."

He wrapped the paper about a stone, and tied it with a wisp of grass.
With a sudden flexile turn of a wrist that had thrown many a reata, he
flung it straight through the open window. Elena read the meaningless
phrases, then fell insensible to the floor.

IX

It was the custom of Dona Jacoba personally to oversee her entire
establishment every day, and she always went at a different hour, that
laziness might never feel sure of her back. To-day she visited the
rancheria immediately after dinner, and looked through every hut with
her piercing eyes. If the children were dirty, she peremptorily ordered
their stout mammas to put them into the clean clothes which her bounty
had provided. If a bed was unmade, she boxed the ears of the owner and
sent her spinning across the room to her task. But she found little to
scold about; her discipline was too rigid. When she was satisfied that
the huts were in order, she went down to the great stone tubs sunken
in the ground, where the women were washing in the heavy shade of the
willows. In their calico gowns they made bright bits of colour against
the drooping green of the trees.

"Maria," she cried sharply, "thou art wringing that fine linen too
harshly. Dost thou wish to break in pieces the bridal clothes of thy
senorita? Be careful, or I will lay the whip across thy shoulders."

She walked slowly through the willows, enjoying the shade. Her fine old
head was held sternly back, and her shoulders were as square as her
youngest son's; but she sighed a little, and pressed a willow branch
to her face with a caressing motion. She looked up to the gray
peak standing above its fellows, bare, ugly, gaunt. She was not an
imaginative woman, but she always had felt in closer kinship with that
solitary peak than with her own blood. As she left the wood and saw
the gay cavalcade about to start--the burnished horses, the dashing
caballeros, the girls with their radiant faces and jaunty habits--she
sighed again. Long ag