hold and start him right!"

Dona Bernarda once again had reason to appreciate the talent of her
counsellor. His predictions, made with a cynicism that always caused the
pious lady to blush, had been fulfilled to the letter!

She, too, was sure it was all over. Her son was not so blind as his
father had been. He had soon wearied of a "lost woman" like Leonora; he
had decided it was not worth while to quarrel with his mamma over so
trifling a matter, and have his enemies discredit him on that account.
He was returning to the path of duty; and to express her unbounded joy,
the good woman could not pamper him enough.

"And how about ... that?" her friends would ask her, mysteriously.

"Nothing," she would answer, with a proud smile. "Three weeks have gone
by and he hasn't shown the slightest inclination to go back. No, Rafael
is a good boy. All that was just a young one's notion. If you could only
see him keeping me company in the parlor every afternoon! An angel! Good
as pie! He spends hour after hour chatting with me and Matias's
daughter."

And then, broadening her smile and winking cunningly, she would add:

"I think there's something doing in that direction."

And indeed something was "doing"; at least, to judge by appearances.
Bored with wandering from room to room through the house, sick of his
books, with which he would spend hours and hours turning pages without
really seeing a word that was printed on them, Rafael had taken refuge
in the sitting-room where his mother did her sewing, supervising a
complicated piece of embroidery that Remedios was making.

The girl's submissive simplicity appealed to Rafael. Her ingenuousness
gave him a sense of freshness and repose. She was a cosy secluded refuge
where he might sleep after a tempest. His mother's satisfied smile was
there to encourage him in this feeling. Never had he seen her so kind
and so communicative. The pleasure of having him once more safe and
obedient in her hands had mollified that disposition so stern by nature
as to verge on rudeness.

Remedios, with her head bowed low over her embroidery, would blush deep
red whenever Rafael praised her work or told her she was the prettiest
girl in all Alcira. He would help her thread her needles, and hold his
hands out to make a winding frame for the skeins; and more than once,
with the familiarity of an old playmate, he would pinch her
mischievously through the embroidery hoop. And she would never miss the