p at
all. It would take more courage than Felipe possessed, to try that plan
again; and he lay on his veranda bed, this afternoon, tossing about with
sheer impatience at his baffled purpose. Ramona sat at the foot of the
bed, taking the last stitches in the nearly completed altar-cloth. The
Senora sat in her usual seat, dozing, with her head thrown back. It
was very hot; a sultry south-wind, with dust from the desert, had been
blowing all day, and every living creature was more or less prostrated
by it.

As the Senora's eyes closed, a sudden thought struck Felipe. Taking
out a memorandum-book in which he kept his accounts, he began rapidly
writing. Looking up, and catching Ramona's eye, he made a sign to her
that it was for her. She glanced apprehensively at the Senora. She was
asleep. Presently Felipe, folding the note, and concealing it in his
hand, rose, and walked towards Ramona's window, Ramona terrifiedly
watching him; the sound of Felipe's steps roused the Senora, who sat
up instantly, and gazed about her with that indescribable expression
peculiar to people who hope they have not been asleep, but know they
have. "Have I been asleep?" she asked.

"About one minute, mother," answered Felipe, who was leaning, as he
spoke, against Ramona's open window, his arms crossed behind him.
Stretching them out, and back and forth a few times, yawning idly, he
said, "This heat is intolerable!" Then he sauntered leisurely down the
veranda steps into the garden-walk, and seated himself on the bench
under the trellis there.

The note had been thrown into Ramona's room. She was hot and cold with
fear lest she might not be able to get it unobserved. What if the
Senora were to go first into the room! She hardly dared look at her. But
fortune is not always on the side of tyrants. The Senora was fast dozing
off again, relieved that Felipe was out of speaking distance of Ramona.
As soon as her eyes were again shut, Ramona rose to go. The Senora
opened her eyes. Ramona was crossing the threshold of the door; she was
going into the house. Good! Still farther away from Felipe.

"Are you going to your room, Ramona?" said the Senor.

"I was," replied Ramona, alarmed. "Did you want me here?"

"No," said the Senora; and she closed her eyes again.

In a second more the note was safe in Ramona's hands.

"Dear Ramona," Felipe had written, "I am distracted because I cannot
speak with you alone. Can you think of any way? I want to explain