only a dispute there has
been. There will be disputes in families sometimes. It is none of our
affair. All is settled now."

And Margarita, standing in the dining-room, when she saw them all
coming in as usual,--the Senora, Felipe, Ramona,--no change, even to
her scrutinizing eye, in anybody's face, was more surprised than she had
been for many a day; and began to think again, as she had more than
once since this tragedy began, that she must have dreamed much that she
remembered.

But surfaces are deceitful, and eyes see little. Considering its
complexity, the fineness and delicacy of its mechanism, the results
attainable by the human eye seem far from adequate to the expenditure
put upon it. We have flattered ourselves by inventing proverbs of
comparison in matter of blindness,--"blind as a bat," for instance. It
would be safe to say that there cannot be found in the animal kingdom
a bat, or any other creature, so blind in its own range of circumstance
and connection, as the greater majority of human beings are in the
bosoms of their families. Tempers strain and recover, hearts break and
heal, strength falters, fails, and comes near to giving way altogether,
every day, without being noted by the closest lookers-on.

Before night of this second day since the trouble had burst like a
storm-cloud on the peaceful Moreno household, everything had so resumed
the ordinary expression and routine, that a shrewder observer and
reasoner than Margarita might well be excused for doubting if any
serious disaster could have occurred to any one. Senor Felipe sauntered
about in his usual fashion, smoking his cigarettes, or lay on his bed in
the veranda, dozing. The Senora went her usual rounds of inspection, fed
her birds, spoke to every one in her usual tone, sat in her carved chair
with her hands folded, gazing out on the southern sky. Ramona busied
herself with her usual duties, dusted the chapel, put fresh flowers
before all the Madonnas, and then sat down at her embroidery. Ramona had
been for a long time at work on a beautiful altar-cloth for the chapel.
It was to have been a present to the Senora. It was nearly done. As she
held up the frame in which it was stretched, and looked at the delicate
tracery of the pattern, she sighed. It had been with a mingled feeling
of interest and hopelessness that she had for months been at work on it,
often saying to herself, "She won't care much for it, beautiful as it
is, just because I d