They were heiresses, moreover, which makes a
difference even in a convent school that shuts the world out with
forbidding gates.

Juanita bade her friend keep watch, and ran quickly among the trees. The
wall was old and overgrown with wild roses and honeysuckle. She found the
hole, and, hastily turning back her sleeve, thrust her arm through. Her
hand came out through the flowers with an inconsequent, childish flourish
of the fingers close by the grave face of Marcos. He was essentially a
man of his word; and she jerked her hand away from his lips with a gay
laugh.

"Marcos," she said, "the packets must be small or they will not come
through."

"I have had them made small on purpose," he said. But she seemed to have
forgotten the chocolates already, for her hand did not come back.

"I'm trying to see through," she explained, after a moment. "I can see
nothing, only something black. I see. It is your horse; you are on
horseback. Is it the Moor? Have you ridden the dear old Moor up here to
see me? Please bring his nose near so that I can stroke it."

And her fingers came through the flowers again, feeling the empty air.

"I wonder if he knows my hand," she said. "Oh, Marcos! is there no one to
take me away from here? I hate the place; and yet I am afraid. I am
afraid of something, Marcos, and I do not know what it is. It was all
right when papa was alive. For I felt that he would certainly come some
day and take me away, and all this would be over."

"All--what?" inquired Marcos, the matter-of-fact, at the other side of
the wall.

"Oh, I don't know. There is a sort of strain and mystery which I cannot
define. I am not a coward, you know, but sometimes I am afraid and feel
alone in the world. There is Leon, of course; but Leon is no good, is
he?"

"No, he is no good," replied Marcos.

"And, Marcos, do you think it is possible to be in the world and yet be
saved; to be quite safe, I mean, for the next world, like Sor Teresa?"

"Yes, I do."

"Does Uncle Ramon think so?"

"Yes," replied Marcos.

"What a bother one's soul is," she said, with a sigh. "I'm sure mine is.
I am never allowed to think of anything else."

"Why?" asked Marcos, who was a patient searcher after remedies, and never
discussed matters which could not be ameliorated by immediate action.

"Oh! because it seems that I am more than usually wicked. No one seems to
think it possible that I can save my soul unless I go into religion."

"A