one was to be seen along the length of the broad allee,
strewn an inch deep with scattered red and yellow petals--colorless in
the moonbeams. She was turning away, when Dick's familiar voice, but
with a strange accent of entreaty in it, broke the silence. It seemed to
her vaguely to come from within the pear-tree shadow.

"But we must understand one another, my darling! Tell me all. This
suspense, this mystery, this brief moment of happiness, and these hours
of parting and torment, are killing me!"

A slight cough broke from Aunt Viney. She had heard enough--she did not
wish to hear more. The mystery was explained. Dick loved Cecily; the
coyness or hesitation was not on HIS part. Some idiotic girlish caprice,
quite inconsistent with what she had noticed at the mission church,
was keeping Cecily silent, reserved, and exasperating to her lover. She
would have a talk with the young lady, without revealing the fact that
she had overheard them. She was perhaps a little hurt that affairs
should have reached this point without some show of confidence to her
from the young people. Dick might naturally be reticent--but Cecily!

She did not even look towards the pear-tree, but turned and walked
stiffly out of the gate. As she was crossing the lane she suddenly
started back in utter dismay and consternation! For Cecily, her
niece,--in her own proper person,--was actually just coming OUT OF THE
HOUSE!

Aunt Viney caught her wrist. "Where have you been?" she asked quickly.

"In the house," stammered Cecily, with a frightened face.

"You have not been in the garden with Dick?" continued Aunt Viney
sharply--yet with a hopeless sense of the impossibility of the
suggestion.

"No, I was not even going there. I thought of just strolling down the
lane."

The girl's accents were truthful; more than that, she absolutely looked
relieved by her aunt's question. "Do you want me, Aunty?" she added
quickly.

"Yes--no. Run away, then--but don't go far."

At any other time Aunt Viney might have wondered at the eagerness with
which Cecily tripped away; now she was only anxious to get rid of her.
She entered the casa hurriedly.

"Send Josefa to me at once," she said to Manuel.

Josefa, the housekeeper,--a fat Mexican woman,--appeared. "Send Concha
and the other maids here." They appeared, mutely wondering. Aunt Viney
glanced hurriedly over them--they were all there--a few comely, but not
too attractive, and all stupidly complacent. "Ha