, the large black cat which had followed me, put up her
back to be stroked and purred and rubbed against my leg. As I closed the
gate the same voice sounded again but more faintly. "Beautiful eyes hath
Ysidria; beautiful eyes!"

IV.

When I returned home, Catalina had a hot supper ready, and I sat down,
forgetting, for the moment, the events of the day, in the odour of the
good things on the table.

"What success, Don Carlos, have you found the flowers you were searching
for?"

"Yes, Catalina, I found the plants just where I expected to find them,
and I also found at the old adobe what I did not look for." I then gave
an account of the day, however, making as modest enumeration of the
charms of Madre Moreno's niece, as I was able, for fear of exciting
Catalina's suspicions.

I began to feel that I was much interested in the beautiful Ysidria, and
hated to have old Catalina discover it, for the girls relationship to
the Madre would, I knew, be the cause of much disquiet to the good
woman.

I sat before the door long after supper, building air castles, in all of
which the fair stranger held a place. Her brilliant eyes were always
before my mind, as I had first seen them that afternoon, sometimes of a
deep blue colour, and then in a moment black as jet, when the dilated
pupil covered the iris, and then her pretty smile and graceful form each
had a great and wonderful charm for me.

The only thing that troubled me, and I tried to laugh it out of my
thoughts, was the connection with the reputed witch, but foolish as I
knew such notions to be, I was, however, unable to banish them, and I
often wished that the beautiful Ysidria was any one in the world but the
niece of Ambrosia Moreno. Not that I had any dislike for the Madre, or
that I bore her any ill will for the various misfortunes which had come
to my family through her agency, as the country people believed, but it
was unpleasant to me to think of this young creature living under the
same roof with and under the influence of such a woman as I knew the
Moreno to be, aside from her connection with el bueno Diablo, at which I
could only laugh, and a story which I knew to be encouraged by the Madre
herself, simply for the notoriety it gave her, and the power she was
enabled through this belief to exercise over the people.

Ysidria, I had already learned, was as skeptical as myself in regard to
Madre Moreno's spells, for the laughing manner in which she had