, Senor Padre_," dropping a little courtesy. "But
isn't Cucumbra foolish to have bad thoughts?"

"Why, yes--he certainly is," replied Jose slowly, hard pressed by the
unusual question.

"He has just _got_ to love that puppy, or else he will never be happy,
will he, Padre?"

Why would this girl persist in ending her statements with an
interrogation! How could he know whether Cucumbra's happiness would be
imperfect if he failed in love toward the puppy?

"Because, you know, Padre," the child continued, coming up to him and
slipping her hand into his, "padre Rosendo once told me that God was
Love; and after that I knew we just had to love everything and
everybody, or else He can't see us--can He, Padre?"

He can't see us--if we don't love everything and everybody! Well! Jose
wondered what sort of interpretation the Vatican, with its fiery
hatred of heretics, would put upon this remark.

"Can He, Padre?" insisted the girl.

"Dear child, in these matters you are teaching me; not I you," replied
the noncommittal priest.

"But, Padre, you are going to teach the people in the church," the
girl ventured quizzically.

Ah, so he was! And he had wondered what. In his hour of need the
answer was vouchsafed him.

"Yes, dearest child--and I am going to teach them what I learn from
_you_."

Carmen regarded him for a moment uncertainly. "But, padre Rosendo says
you are to teach _me_," she averred.

"And so I am, little one," the priest replied; "but not one half as
much as I shall learn from you."

Dona Maria's summons to breakfast interrupted the conversation.
Throughout the repast Jose felt himself subjected to the closest
scrutiny by Carmen. What was running through her thought, he could
only vaguely surmise. But he instinctively felt that he was being
weighed and appraised by this strange child, and that she was finding
him wanting in her estimate of what manner of man a priest of God
ought to be. And yet he knew that she embraced him in her great love.
Oftentimes his quick glance at her would find her serious gaze bent
upon him. But whenever their eyes met, her sweet face would instantly
relax and glow with a smile of tenderest love--a love which, he felt,
was somehow, in some way, destined to reconstruct his shattered life.

Jose's plans for educating the girl had gradually evolved into
completion during the past two days. He explained them at length to
Rosendo after the morning meal; and the latter, with dilati