overcast and gray.

"If it were spring, this would mean rain," said Alessandro; "but it
cannot rain, I think, now."

"No!" laughed Ramona, "not till we get our house done. Will it be of
adobe, Alessandro?"

"Dearest Majella, not yet! At first it must be of the tule. They are
very comfortable while it is warm, and before winter I will build one of
adobe."

"Two houses! Wasteful Alessandro! If the tule house is good, I shall not
let you, Alessandro, build another."

Ramona's mirthful moments bewildered Alessandro. To his slower
temperament and saddened nature they seemed preternatural; as if she
were all of a sudden changed into a bird, or some gay creature outside
the pale of human life,--outside and above it.

"You speak as the birds sing, my Majella," he said slowly. "It was well
to name you Majel; only the wood-dove has not joy in her voice, as you
have. She says only that she loves and waits."

"I say that, too, Alessandro!" replied Ramona, reaching out both her
arms towards him.

The horses were walking slowly, and very close side by side. Baba and
Benito were now such friends they liked to pace closely side by side;
and Baba and Benito were by no means without instinctive recognitions of
the sympathy between their riders. Already Benito knew Ramona's voice,
and answered it with pleasure; and Baba had long ago learned to stop
when his mistress laid her hand on Alessandro's shoulder. He stopped
now, and it was long minutes before he had the signal to go on again.

"Majella! Majella!" cried Alessandro, as, grasping both her hands in
his, he held them to his cheeks, to his neck, to his mouth, "if the
saints would ask Alessandro to be a martyr for Majella's sake, like
those she was telling of, then she would know if Alessandro loved her!
But what can Alessandro do now? What, oh, what? Majella gives all;
Alessandro gives nothing!" and he bowed his forehead on her hands,
before he put them back gently on Baba's neck.

Tears filled Ramona's eyes. How should she win this saddened man, this
distrusting lover, to the joy which was his desert? "Alessandro can
do one thing," she said, insensibly falling into his mode of
speaking,--"one thing for his Majella: never, never say that he has
nothing to give her. When he says that, he makes Majella a liar; for
she has said that he is all the world to her,--he himself all the world
which she desires. Is Majella a liar?"

But it was even now with an ecstasy only half joy