Alessandro could have taught Felipe; and when it came to the things of the soul, and of honor, Alessandro's plane was the higher of the two. Felipe was a fair-minded, honorable man, as men go; but circumstances and opportunity would have a hold on him they could never get on Alessandro. Alessandro would not lie; Felipe might. Alessandro was by nature full of veneration and the religious instinct; Felipe had been trained into being a good Catholic. But they were both singularly pure-minded, open-hearted, generous-souled young men, and destined, by the strange chance which had thus brought them into familiar relations, to become strongly attached to each other. After the day on which the madness of Felipe's fever had been so miraculously soothed and controlled by Alessandro's singing, he was never again wildly delirious. When he waked in the night from that first long sleep, he was, as Father Salvierderra had predicted, in his right mind; knew every one, and asked rational questions. But the over-heated and excited brain did not for some time wholly resume normal action. At intervals he wandered, especially when just arousing from sleep; and, strangely enough, it was always for Alessandro that he called at these times, and it seemed always to be music that he craved. He recollected Alessandro's having sung to him that first night. 'I was not so crazy as you all thought,' he said. 'I knew a great many of the things I said, but I couldn't help saying them; and I heard Ramona ask Alessandro to sing; and when he began, I remember I thought the Virgin had reached down and put her hand on my head and cooled it.' On the second evening, the first after the shearers had left, Alessandro, seeing Ramona in the veranda, went to the foot of the steps, and said, 'Senorita, would Senor Felipe like to have me play on the violin to him tonight?' 'Why, whose violin have you got?' exclaimed Ramona, astonished. 'My own, Senorita.' 'Your own! I thought you said you did not bring it.' 'Yes, Senorita, that is true; but I sent for it last night, and it is here.' 'Sent to Temecula and back already!' cried Ramona. 'Yes, Senorita. Our ponies are swift and strong. They can go a hundred miles in a day, and not suffer. It was Jose brought it, and he is at the Ortega's by this time.' Ramona's eyes glistened. 'I wish I could have thanked him,' she said. 'You should have let me know. He ought to have been paid for going.' 'I paid him, Senorita; he went for me,' said Alessandro, with a shade of wounded pride in the tone, which Ramona should have perceived, but did not, and went on hurting the lover's heart still more. 'But it was for us that you sent for it, Alessandro; the Senora would rather pay the messenger herself.' 'It is paid, Senorita. It is nothing. If the Senor Felipe wishes to hear the violin, I will play;' and Alessandro walked slowly away. Ramona gazed after him. For the first time, she looked at him with no thought of his being an Indian,—a thought there had surely been no need of her having, since his skin was not a shade darker than Felipe's; but so strong was the race feeling, that never till that moment had she forgotten it. 'What a superb head, and what a walk!' she thought. Then, looking more observantly, she said: 'He walks as if he were offended. He did not like my offering to pay for the messenger. He wanted to do it for dear Felipe. I will tell Felipe, and we will give him some present when he goes away.' 'Isn't he splendid, Senorita?' came in a light laughing tone from Margarita's lips close to her ear, in the fond freedom of their relation. 'Isn't he splendid? And oh, Senorita, you can't think how he dances! Last year I danced with him every night; he has wings on his feet, for all he is so tall and big.' There was a coquettish consciousness in the girl's tone, that was suddenly, for some unexplained reason, exceedingly displeasing to Ramona. Drawing herself away, she spoke to Margarita in a tone she had never before in her life used. 'It is not fitting to speak like that about young men. The Senora would be displeased if she heard you,' she said, and walked swiftly away leaving poor Margarita as astounded as if she had got a box on the ear. She looked after Ramona's retreating figure, then after Alessandro's. She had heard them talking together just before she came up. Thoroughly bewildered and puzzled, she stood motionless for several seconds, reflecting; then, shaking her head, she ran away, trying to dismiss the harsh speech from her mind. 'Alessandro must have vexed the Senorita,' she thought, 'to make her speak like that to me.' But the incident was not so easily dismissed from Margarita's thoughts. Many times in the day it recurred to her, still a bewilderment and a puzzle, as far from solution as ever. It was a tiny seed, whose name she did not dream of; but it was dropped in soil where it would grow some day,—forcing-house soil, and a bitter seed; and when it blossomed, Ramona would have an enemy. All unconscious, equally of Margarita's heart and her own, Ramona proceeded to Felipe's room. Felipe was sleeping, the Senora sitting by his side, as she had sat for days and nights,—her dark face looking thinner and more drawn each day; her hair looking even whiter, if that could be; and her voice growing hollow from faintness and sorrow. 'Dear Senora,' whispered Ramona, 'do go out for a few moments while he sleeps, and let me watch,—just on the walk in front of the veranda. The sun is still lying there, bright and warm. You will be ill if you do not have air.' The Senora shook her head. 'My place is here,' she answered, speaking in a dry, hard tone. Sympathy was hateful to the Senora Moreno; she wished neither to give it nor take it. 'I shall not leave him. I do not need the air.' Ramona had a cloth-of-gold rose in her hand. The veranda eaves were now shaded with them, hanging down like a thick fringe of golden tassels. It was the rose Felipe loved best. Stooping, she laid it on the bed, near Felipe's head. 'He will like to see it when he wakes,' she said. The Senora seized it, and flung it far out in the room. 'Take it away! Flowers are poison when one is ill,' she said coldly. 'Have I never told you that?' 'No, Senora,' replied Ramona, meekly; and she glanced involuntarily at the saucer of musk which the Senora kept on the table close to Felipe's pillow. 'The musk is different,' said the Senora, seeing the glance. 'Musk is a medicine; it revives.' Ramona knew, but she would have never dared to say, that Felipe hated musk. Many times he had said to her how he hated the odor; but his mother was so fond of it, that it must always be that the veranda and the house would be full of it. Ramona hated it too. At times it made her faint, with a deadly faintness. But neither she nor Felipe would have confessed as much to the Senora; and if they had, she would have thought it all a fancy. 'Shall I stay?' asked Ramona, gently. 'As you please,' replied the Senora. The simple presence of Ramona irked her now with a feeling she did not pretend to analyze, and would have been terrified at if she had. She would not have dared to say to herself, in plain words: 'Why is that girl well and strong, and my Felipe lying here like to die! If Felipe dies, I cannot bear the sight of her. What is she, to be preserved of the saints!' But that, or something like it, was what she felt whenever Ramona entered the room; still more, whenever she assisted in ministering to Felipe. If it had been possible, the Senora would have had no hands but her own do aught for her boy. Even tears from Ramona sometimes irritated her. 'What does she know about loving Felipe! He is nothing to her!' thought the Senora,
