sister's representative, consider you a member of our own family.
So long as we have a home for ourselves, that home is yours, as it
always has been. If you choose to leave it, and to disgrace yourself and
us by marrying an Indian, we cannot help ourselves."

The Senora paused. Ramona did not speak. Her eyes were fixed on the
Senora's face, as if she would penetrate to her inmost soul; the girl
was beginning to recognize the Senora's true nature; her instincts and
her perceptions were sharpened by love.

"Have you anything to say to me or to my son?" asked the Senora.

"No, Senora," replied Ramona; "I do not think of anything more to say
than I said this morning. Yes," she added, "there is. Perhaps I shall
not speak with you again before I go away. I thank you once more for
the home you have given me for so many years. And you too, Felipe," she
continued, turning towards Felipe, her face changing, all her pent-up
affection and sorrow looking out of her tearful eyes,--"you too, dear
Felipe. You have always been so good to me. I shall always love you as
long as I live;" and she held out both her hands to him. Felipe took
them in his, and was about to speak, when the Senora interrupted
him. She did not intend to have any more of this sort of affectionate
familiarity between her son and Ramona.

"Are we to understand that you are taking your leave now?" she said. "Is
it your purpose to go at once?"

"I do not know, Senora," stammered Ramona; "I have not seen Alessandro;
I have not heard--" And she looked up in distress at Felipe, who
answered compassionately,--

"Alessandro has gone."

"Gone!" shrieked Ramona. "Gone! not gone, Felipe!"

"Only for four days," replied Felipe. "To Temecula. I thought it would
be better for him to be away for a day or two. He is to come back
immediately. Perhaps he will be back day after to-morrow."

"Did he want to go? What did he go for? Why didn't you let me go with
him? Oh, why, why did he go?" cried Ramona.

"He went because my son told him to go," broke in the Senora, impatient
of this scene, and of the sympathy she saw struggling in Felipe's
expressive features. "My son thought, and rightly, that the sight of him
would be more than I could bear just now; so he ordered him to go away,
and Alessandro obeyed."

Like a wounded creature at bay, Ramona turned suddenly away from Felipe,
and facing the Senora, her eyes resolute and dauntless spite of the
streaming tears, exclaimed,