ruption any longer, and that I may then
go back to the garden, out of this dark earth.' So Our Lady prayed for
it, and it was cleansed with water and purified, and--what do you think
the Little Mass of Corruption became? It became a rose--a red rose in
that very garden, just where they had buried it. From which we see--But
I don't quite remember what we see from it," she broke off the pain of
baffled effort on her brow. "My uncle could tell you that."

Afterwards, for a few minutes, she was silent, lying quite still, with
her eyes on the ceiling.

"Why do sunny lands produce dark people, and dark lands light people?"
she asked all at once.

"Ah, don't begin to talk again, dear," Maria Dolores pleaded. "The
doctor will he coming soon now, and he will be angry if he finds that I
have let you talk."

"Oh, I will tell him that it isn't your fault," said Annunziata. "I will
tell him that you didn't let me, but that I talked because it is so hard
to lie here and think, think, think, and not be allowed to say what you
are thinking. Prospero asked me that question about sunny lands a long
time ago. I've been thinking and thinking, but I can't think it out.
Have you a great deal of money? Are you very rich?"

"Darling, won't you please not talk any more?" Maria Dolores implored
her.

"I'll stop pretty soon," said Annunziata. "I think you are very rich. I
think, in spite of his saying her name is not Maria Dolores, that you
are the dark woman whom Prospero is to marry. He is to marry a dark
woman who will be very rich. But then he will also he very rich himself.
Is Austria a sunny land? England must be a dark land, for Prospero is
light. Let me see your left hand, please, and I will tell you whether
you are to marry a light man.

"Hush!" said Maria Dolores, trying not to laugh. "That shall be some
other time."

"Wouldn't you like to marry Prospero? I would," said Annunziata.

"I think I hear the wheels of the doctor's gig," said Maria Dolores.
"Now we shall both be scolded."

"But of course, if you do marry him, I can't," Annunziata pursued,
undaunted by this menace. "A man isn't allowed to have two
wives,--unless he is a king. He may have two sisters or two daughters,
but not two wives or two mothers. There was once a king named Salomone
who had a thousand wives, but even he had only one mother, I think. I
hope you will live at Sant' Alessina after your marriage. Will you?"

Maria Dolores bit her lip and vouchsafed