ark left
on; alternate yellow and brown, as gay as if glad hearts had devised it.
The roof, of thatch, tule, and yucca-stalks, double laid and thick,
was carried out several feet in front of the house, making a sort of
bower-like veranda, supported by young fir-tree stems, left rough. Once
more Ramona would sit under a thatch with birds'-nests in it. A little
corral for the sheep, and a rough shed for the pony, and the home was
complete: far the prettiest home they had ever had. And here, in the
sunny veranda, when autumn came, sat Ramona, plaiting out of fragrant
willow twigs a cradle. The one over which she had wept such bitter tears
in the valley, they had burned the night before they left their Saboba
home. It was in early autumn she sat plaiting this cradle. The ground
around was strewn with wild grapes drying; the bees were feasting on
them in such clouds that Ramona rose frequently from her work to drive
them away, saying, as she did so, "Good bees, make our honey from
something else; we gain nothing if you drain our grapes for it; we want
these grapes for the winter;" and as she spoke, her imagination sped
fleetly forward to the winter, The Virgin must have forgiven her, to
give her again the joy of a child in her arms. Ay, a joy! Spite of
poverty, spite of danger, spite of all that cruelty and oppression could
do, it would still be a joy to hold her child in her arms.

The baby was born before winter came. An old Indian woman, the same
whose house they had hired in Saboba, had come up to live with Ramona.
She was friendless now, her daughter having died, and she thankfully
came to be as a mother to Ramona. She was ignorant and feeble but Ramona
saw in her always the picture of what her own mother might perchance
be, wandering, suffering, she knew not what or where; and her yearning,
filial instinct found sad pleasure in caring for this lonely, childless,
aged one.

Ramona was alone with her on the mountain at the time of the baby's
birth. Alessandro had gone to the valley, to be gone two days; but
Ramona felt no fear. When Alessandro returned, and she laid the child in
his arms, she said with a smile, radiant once more, like the old smiles,
"See, beloved! The Virgin has forgiven me; she has given us a daughter
again!"

But Alessandro did not smile. Looking scrutinizingly into the baby's
face, he sighed, and said, "Alas, Majella, her eyes are like mine, not
yours!"

"I am glad of it," cried Ramona. "I was g