, too;
wine for Alessandro. Anguish filled her heart as she recalled how gaunt
he looked. "Starving," he said they had been. Good God! Starving! And
she had sat down each day at loaded tables, and seen, each day, good
food thrown to the dogs to eat.

It was long before the Senora went to her room; and long after that
before Felipe's breathing had become so deep and regular that Ramona
dared feel sure that he was asleep. At last she ventured out. All was
dark; it was past midnight.

"The violin first!" she said; and creeping into the dining-room, and
through the inner door to Felipe's room, she brought it out, rolled it
in shawl after shawl, and put it in the net with her clothes. Then she
stole out, with this net on her back, "like a true Indian woman as I
am," she said, almost gayly, to herself,--through the court-yard, around
the southeast corner of the house, past the garden, down to the willows,
where she laid down her load, and went back for the second.

This was harder. Wine she was resolved to have and bread and cold
meat. She did not know so well where to put her hand on old Marda's
possessions as on her own, and she dared not strike a light. She made
several journeys to the kitchen and pantry before she had completed her
store. Wine, luckily, she found in the dining-room,--two full bottles;
also milk, which she poured into a leathern flask which hung on the wall
in the veranda.

Now all was ready. She leaned from her window, and listened to Felipe's
breathing. "How can I go without bidding him good-by?" she said. "How
can I?" and she stood irresolute.

"Dear Felipe! Dear Felipe! He has always been so good to me! He has done
all he could for me. I wish I dared kiss him. I will leave a note for
him."

Taking a pencil and paper, and a tiny wax taper, whose light
would hardly be seen across a room, she slipped once more into the
dining-room, knelt on the floor behind the door, lighted her taper, and
wrote:--

"DEAR FELIPE,--Alessandro has come, and I am going away with him
to-night. Don't let anything be done to us, if you can help it. I don't
know where we are going. I hope, to Father Salvierderra. I shall love
you always. Thank you, dear Felipe, for all your kindness.

"RAMONA."

It had not taken a moment. She blew out her taper, and crept back into
her room. Felipe's bed was now moved close to the wall of the house.
From her window she could reach its foot. Slowly, cautiously, she
stretched out her