ove me?" and with one hand in his
mane, and her cheek, every few steps, laid close to his, she led Baba up
and down the first furrows he ploughed.

"My Senorita!" thought Alessandro to himself, half in pain, half in
pride, as, running behind with the unevenly jerked plough, he watched
her laughing face and blowing hair,--"my Senorita!"

But Ramona would not run with her hand in Baba's mane this winter. There
was a new work for her, indoors. In a rustic cradle, which Alessandro
had made, under her directions, of the woven twigs, like the great
outdoor acorn-granaries, only closer woven, and of an oval shape, and
lifted from the floor by four uprights of red manzanita stems,--in
this cradle, on soft white wool fleeces, covered with white homespun
blankets, lay Ramona's baby, six months old, lusty, strong, and
beautiful, as only children born of great love and under healthful
conditions can be. This child was a girl, to Alessandro's delight; to
Ramona's regret,--so far as a loving mother can feel regret connected
with her firstborn. Ramona had wished for an Alessandro; but the
disappointed wish faded out of her thoughts, hour by hour, as she gazed
into her baby-girl's blue eyes,--eyes so blue that their color was the
first thing noticed by each person who looked at her.

"Eyes of the sky," exclaimed Ysidro, when he first saw her.

"Like the mother's," said Alessandro; on which Ysidro turned an
astonished look upon Ramona, and saw for the first time that her eyes,
too, were blue.

"Wonderful!" he said. "It is so. I never saw it;" and he wondered in his
heart what father it had been, who had given eyes like those to one born
of an Indian mother.

"Eyes of the sky," became at once the baby's name in the village; and
Alessandro and Ramona, before they knew it, had fallen into the way of
so calling her. But when it came to the christening, they demurred. The
news was brought to the village, one Saturday, that Father Gaspara would
hold services in the valley the next day, and that he wished all the
new-born babes to be brought for christening. Late into the night,
Alessandro and Ramona sat by their sleeping baby and discussed what
should be her name. Ramona wondered that Alessandro did not wish to name
her Majella.

"No! Never but one Majella," he said, in a tone which gave Ramona a
sense of vague fear, it was so solemn.

They discussed "Ramona," "Isabella." Alessandro suggested Carmena. This
had been his mother's name