we-stricken at the shining rosary.

XVII

BEFORE the end of their second day in the canon, the place had become to
Ramona so like a friendly home, that she dreaded to leave its shelter.
Nothing is stronger proof of the original intent of Nature to do more
for man than the civilization in its arrogance will long permit her to
do, than the quick and sure way in which she reclaims his affection,
when by weariness, idle chance, or disaster, he is returned, for an
interval, to her arms. How soon he rejects the miserable subterfuges of
what he had called habits; sheds the still more miserable pretences of
superiority, makeshifts of adornment, and chains of custom! "Whom the
gods love, die young," has been too long carelessly said. It is not
true, in the sense in which men use the words. Whom the gods love, dwell
with nature; if they are ever lured away, return to her before they are
old. Then, however long they live before they die, they die young. Whom
the gods love, live young--forever.

With the insight of a lover added to the instinct of the Indian,
Alessandro saw how, hour by hour, there grew in Ramona's eyes the wonted
look of one at home; how she watched the shadows, and knew what they
meant.

"If we lived here, the walls would be sun-dials for us, would they not?"
she said, in a tone of pleasure. "I see that yon tall yucca has gone in
shadow sooner than it did yesterday."

And, "What millions of things grow here, Alessandro! I did not know
there were so many. Have they all names? The nuns taught us some names;
but they were hard, and I forgot them, We might name them for ourselves,
if we lived here. They would be our relations."

And, "For one year I should lie and look up at the sky, my Alessandro,
and do nothing else. It hardly seems as if it would be a sin to do
nothing for a year, if one gazed steadily at the sky all the while."

And, "Now I know what it is I have always seen in your face, Alessandro.
It is the look from the sky. One must be always serious and not unhappy,
but never too glad, I think, when he lives with nothing between him and
the sky, and the saints can see him every minute."

And, "I cannot believe that it is but two days I have lived in the
air, Alessandro. This seems to me the first home I have ever had. Is it
because I am Indian, Alessandro, that it gives me such joy?"

It was strange how many more words Ramona spoke than Alessandro, yet how
full she felt their intercourse to