ittle scarlet bodice fitting her slender waist closely; a
chemisette of soft cream-color with loose sleeves covered her neck and
arms, and set off the dark hues of her cheeks and eyes; and around her
curly hair a red scarf was twisted, its fringed edges forming a drapery
at the back of the head, which, more than anything else, seemed to bring
out the latent character of her face. Brown moccasins, red stockings,
and a quantity of bright beads completed her costume.

"By Jove!" cried Edward, "the little thing is almost pretty."

Felipa understood this, and a great light came into her face: forgetting
her pose, she bounded forward to Christine's side. "I am pretty, then?"
she said with exultation; "I _am_ pretty, then, after all? For now you
yourself have said it--have said it."

"No, Felipa," I interposed, "the gentleman said it." For the child had a
curious habit of confounding the two identities which puzzled me then as
now. But this afternoon, this happy afternoon, she was content, for she
was allowed to sit at Christine's feet and look up into her fair face
unmolested. I was forgotten, as usual. "It is always so," I said to
myself. But cynicism, as Mr. Aldrich says, is a small brass field-piece
that eventually bursts and kills the artilleryman. I knew this, having
been blown up myself more than once; so I went back to my painting and
forgot the world. Our world down there on the edge of the salt-marsh,
however, was a small one: when two persons went out of it there was a
vacuum.

One morning Felipa came sadly to my side. "They have gone away," she
said.

"Yes, child."

"Down to the beach to spend all the day."

"Yes, I know it."

"And without me!"

This was the climax. I looked up. Her eyes were dry, but there was a
hollow look of disappointment in her face that made her seem old; it was
as though for an instant you caught what her old-woman face would be
half a century on.

"Why did they not take me?" she said. "I am pretty now: she herself said
it."

"They can not always take you, Felipa," I replied, giving up the point
as to who had said it.

"Why not? I am pretty now: she herself said it," persisted the child.
"In these clothes, you know: she herself said it. The clothes of the son
of Pedro you will never see more: they are burned."

"Burned?"

"Yes, burned," replied Felipa composedly. "I carried them out on the
barren and burned them. Drollo singed his paw. They burned quite nicely.
But they a