on the table close to Felipe's
pillow.

"The musk is different," said the Senora, seeing the glance. "Musk is a
medicine; it revives."

Ramona knew, but she would have never dared to say, that Felipe hated
musk. Many times he had said to her how he hated the odor; but his
mother was so fond of it, that it must always be that the veranda and
the house would be full of it. Ramona hated it too. At times it made her
faint, with a deadly faintness. But neither she nor Felipe would have
confessed as much to the Senora; and if they had, she would have thought
it all a fancy.

"Shall I stay?" asked Ramona, gently.

"As you please," replied the Senora. The simple presence of Ramona irked
her now with a feeling she did not pretend to analyze, and would
have been terrified at if she had. She would not have dared to say
to herself, in plain words: "Why is that girl well and strong, and my
Felipe lying here like to die! If Felipe dies, I cannot bear the sight
of her. What is she, to be preserved of the saints!"

But that, or something like it, was what she felt whenever Ramona
entered the room; still more, whenever she assisted in ministering to
Felipe. If it had been possible, the Senora would have had no hands but
her own do aught for her boy. Even tears from Ramona sometimes irritated
her. "What does she know about loving Felipe! He is nothing to her!"
thought the Senora, strangely mistaken, strangely blind, strangely
forgetting how feeble is the tie of blood in the veins by the side of
love in the heart.

If into this fiery soul of the Senora's could have been dropped one
second's knowledge of the relative positions she and Ramona already
occupied in Felipe's heart, she would, on the spot, have either died
herself or have slain Ramona, one or the other. But no such knowledge
was possible; no such idea could have found entrance into the Senora's
mind. A revelation from Heaven of it could hardly have reached even her
ears. So impenetrable are the veils which, fortunately for us all, are
forever held by viewless hands between us and the nearest and closest of
our daily companions.

At twilight of this day Felipe was restless and feverish again. He had
dozed at intervals all day long, but had had no refreshing sleep.

"Send for Alessandro," he said. "Let him come and sing to me."

"He has his violin now; he can play, if you would like that better,"
said Ramona; and she related what Alessandro had told her of the
messeng