spoken
of her aunt's charms and witcheries, when we were on the hill and even
in the presence of the Madre herself, convinced me of her intelligence
and education. It was not this that troubled me concerning Ysidria, but
knowing Madre Moreno as I did, and what an unscrupulous, scheming and
heartless woman she was, I felt that she had brought this lovely niece
to her home for some purpose known only to herself. Of what that purpose
could be I had not the faintest idea, but I knew the Madre never did
anything without an object.

I laughed at myself for the great interest I so suddenly felt in a
person whom I had never seen before, and then only for a few hours. But
laugh as I would, I had to own that I was something more than interested
in the stranger, and the pleasure with which I looked forward to the
promised call in the morning, and my anxiety for her recovery, plainly
showed me that my heart was fast being lost, if indeed it were not
already gone from me.

Catalina sat at the door with me after her work was done, but I was so
deep in my own thoughts, and often did not hear her remarks, that she
left me and went to her room.

I did not notice when she left, and not until the clock in the veranda
struck eleven did I become aware of the length of time I had been
dreaming awake.

The moon was shining clear and full in the blue, cloudless sky, so
bright that scarcely a star could be seen, illuminating the whole
country so that everything not in shadow could be distinguished as well
as if it were noontime.

I walked out from the garden down by the Castilian hedge and along the
road where the shadows of the oaks, with their twisted and
mistletoe-covered branches, made grotesque forms. I was very fond of
these solitary walks on moonlight nights, often going as far as the
divide, from which Bolinas and the great ocean can be seen, and where
Larsen's wayside inn now stands, but to-night there was a new sensation
of loneliness which I had never felt before, and I longed for some one
to be with me; then I began to wonder whom I would prefer for a
companion, and thought of all my friends, even to old Madre Moreno, but
none of them seemed to be the one to break the new and undefinable
loneliness. Suddenly the form of the fair stranger, with her bright eyes
and expressive face, came up before my fancy, and I exclaimed, "Yes, it
is she; it is she alone!"

"Alone!" sounded back upon my ear like a human voice, which startled