uth sky. Ramona
lived there too, with her embroidery or her book, sitting on cushions on
the floor in a corner, or at the foot of Felipe's bed, always so placed,
however,--if anybody had noticed, but nobody did,--so placed that she
could look at Felipe without looking full at the Senora's chair, even if
the Senora were not in it.

Here also came Alessandro many times a day,--sometimes sent for,
sometimes of his own accord. He was freely welcome. When he played or
sang he sat on the upper step of the stairs leading down to the garden.
He also had a secret, which he thought all his own, in regard to the
positions he chose. He sat always, when Ramona was there, in the spot
which best commanded a view of her face. The secret was not all his own.
Felipe knew it. Nothing was escaping Felipe in these days. A bomb-shell
exploding at their feet would not have more astonished the different
members of this circle, the Senora, Ramona, Alessandro, than it would
to have been made suddenly aware of the thoughts which were going on in
Felipe's mind now, from day to day, as he lay there placidly looking at
them all.

It is probable that if Felipe had been in full health and strength when
the revelation suddenly came to him that Alessandro loved Ramona, and
that Ramona might love Alessandro, he would have been instantly filled
with jealous antagonism. But at the time when this revelation came, he
was prostrate, feeble, thinking many times a day that he must soon die;
it did not seem to Felipe that a man could be so weak as he was, and
ever again be strong and well. Side by side with these forebodings of
his own death, always came the thought of Ramona. What would become of
her, if he were gone? Only too well he knew that the girl's heart would
be broken; that she could not live on alone with his mother. Felipe
adored his mother; but he understood her feeling about Ramona.

With his feebleness had also come to Felipe, as is often the case in
long illnesses, a greater clearness of perception. Ramona had ceased to
puzzle him. He no longer asked himself what her long, steady look into
his eyes meant. He knew. He saw it mean that as a sister she loved him,
had always loved him, and could love him in no other way. He wondered a
little at himself that this gave him no more pain; only a sort of sweet,
mournful tenderness towards her. It must be because he was so soon going
out of the world, he thought. Presently he began to be aware that a new