rcia! 'Tis Luis himself, grown
old and thin. For Luis' sake, then I'll try."

A nurse was sitting silent at the patient's bedside and toward her the
child turned an inquiring glance. The answer was a slight, affirmative
nod. The attendant's thought was that it would please Lady Jess to
give the rose and could do the patient no harm to receive it. Indeed,
nothing earthly could harm him any more.

So Jessica stepped softly in and paused beside the cot. Her face was full
of pity and of a growing astonishment, for the nearer she beheld it the
more startling was the sick man's likeness to a childish face hundreds
of miles away.

Her stare brought the patient's own vacant gaze back to a consciousness
of things about him. He saw a yellow-haired girl looking curiously upon
him and extending toward him a half-blown rose. A fair and unexpected
vision in that place of pain, and he asked, half querulously:

"Who are you? An angel come to upbraid me before my time?"

"I'm Jessica Trent, of Sobrante ranch, in Paraiso d'Oro valley."

"W-h-a-t!"

The nurse bent forward, but he motioned her aside.

"Say that again."

"I'm just little Jessica Trent. That's all."

"All! Trent--Trent. Ah!"

"And you? Are you Luis Garcia's missing father?"

"Luis--Luis Garcia. Was it Luis, Ysandra called him?"

"Yes, yes. That was the name on the paper my father found pinned to
the baby's dress. The letter told that the baby's father had gone away
promising to come back, but had never come. The mother had heard of my
dear father's goodness to all who needed help, and she was on her way to
him when her strength gave out. So she died there in the canyon, and she
said the baby's name was like the father's. I remember it all, because
to us the 'Maria' seems like a girl's name, too. Luis Maria Manuel
Alessandro Garcia."

The man's round eyes opened wider and wider. It seemed as if his glare
pierced the child's very heart, and she drew back frightened. The
nurse motioned her to go, but at her first movement toward the door
the patient extended his hands imploring:

"No. Not yet. My time is spent. Let me hear all--all. The child your
father found--ah! me! Your father of all men! Did--did it live?"

"Of course it lived. He is a darling little fellow and he looks--he
looks so like you that I knew you in a moment. He has the same wide brown
eyes, the same black curls, his eyebrows slant so, like yours, he is
your image. But he is the cutest little