s one gift where it would be of more use to him than it could
possibly be in a poor small village; if he could carry it to a market
where there were more people and where work was better paid for. Where
the king and queen were, of course, there must be more money, and one
could find more to do and live better. It was Padre Alejandro, the
village priest, who had suggested this to him first. He was a kind,
jovial old fellow, the padre, and had seen something of the world, too,
long ago, which was perhaps why he was never very hard upon a simple
sinner who went to confession, and could give a bit of unecclesiastical
advice now and then. He had always been kind to Jose, and as Pepita had
grown prettier and prettier every day, he had often spoken of her to old
Jovita, and said she should be well taught and taken care of, and once
even--when she had come into the house with a basket of grapes on her
little head, rose-flushed with the hot day, her black hair curling
in moist silken rings on her forehead--he had been betrayed into the
worldly remark that such pretty young things ought to have something
brighter to look forward to than hard work and scant fare, which made
them old before their time, and left them nothing to look back upon.
But he only said it to Jovita, and Jovita only stared a little, it never
having occurred to her that there was anything much in the world but
hard labor and poverty. And what difference did it make that one was
pretty, except that it became more probable that some gay, lazy fellow
would pretend to fall in love with one, and then after marriage leave
one all the work to do and a houseful of hungry children to feed? She
had seen that often enough. Had it not been so with Pepita's mother, who
died at twenty-five almost an old woman, worn out with trouble and hard
usage?

But afterward, when Padre Alejandro saw Jose, he spoke of Pepita to him
also, though only as if incidentally among other things.

"She should marry some good fellow who could take care of her," he said.
"If you go to Madrid it will also be better for her."

And so the end of it all was that after much slow planning and many
hopes and fears, and more than one disappointment, there came a day when
the uncle was thrown into a violent rage by losing his best and most
patient worker, and the poor cottage stood empty, and Jose and Pepita
and Jovita found themselves in a new world.

What a new world it seemed to them all! Through the