Father Salvierderra. But I think it is always decided as she wishes to
have it, after all. The Senora is wonderful, Alessandro; don't you think
so?"

"She loves Senor Felipe very much," was Alessandro's evasive reply.

"Oh, yes," exclaimed Ramona. "You do not begin to know how much. She
does not love any other human being. He takes it all. She hasn't any
left. If he had died, she would have died too. That is the reason she
likes you so much; she thinks you saved Felipe's life. I mean, that
is one reason," added Ramona, smiling, and looking up confidingly at
Alessandro, who smiled back, not in vanity, but honest gratitude that
the Senorita was pleased to intimate that he was not unworthy of the
Senora's regard.

"I do not think she likes me," he said. "I cannot tell why; but I do
not think she likes any one in the world. She is not like any one I ever
saw, Senorita."

"No," replied Ramona, thoughtfully. "She is not. I am, oh, so afraid of
her, Alessandro! I have always been, ever since I was a little girl. I
used to think she hated me; but now I think she does not care one way or
the other, if I keep out of her way."

While Ramona spoke these words, her eyes were fixed on the running
water at her feet. If she had looked up, and seen the expression in
Alessandro's eyes as he listened, the thing which was drawing near would
have drawn near faster, would have arrived at that moment; but she did
not look up. She went on, little dreaming how hard she was making it for
Alessandro.

"Many's the time I've come down here, at night, to this brook, and
looked at it, and wished it was a big river, so I could throw myself
in, and be carried away out to the sea, dead. But it is a fearful sin,
Father Salvierderra says, to take one's own life; and always the next
morning, when the sun came out, and the birds sang, I've been glad
enough I had not done it. Were you ever so unhappy as that, Alessandro?"

"No, Senorita, never," replied Alessandro; "and it is thought a great
disgrace, among us, to kill one's self. I think I could never do it.
But, oh, Senorita, it is a grief to think of your being unhappy. Will
you always be so? Must you always stay here?"

"Oh, but I am not always unhappy!" said Ramona, with her sunny little
laugh. "Indeed, I am generally very happy. Father Salvierderra says that
if one does no sin, one will be always happy, and that it is a sin not
to rejoice every hour of the day in the sun and the sky and the w