past a hundred years of age. He is blind and childish, and cannot walk; but he is cared for by every one. And we bring him in our arms to every council, and set him by my father's side. He talks very foolishly sometimes, but my father will not let him be interrupted. He says it brings bad luck to affront the aged. We will presently be aged ourselves.' 'Ay, ay!' said Juan, sadly. 'We must all come to it. It is beginning to look not so far off to me!' Alessandro stared, no less astonished at Juan Can's unconscious revelation of his standard of measurement of years than Juan had been at his. 'Faith, old man, what name dost give to yourself to-day!' he thought; but went on with the topic of the raw-hide bed. 'I may not so soon get speech with Senor Felipe,' he said. 'It is usually when he is sleepy that I go to play for him or to sing. But it makes my heart heavy to see him thus languishing day by day, and all for lack of the air and the sun, I do believe, indeed, Juan.' 'Ask the Senorita, then,' said Juan. 'She has his ear at all times.' Alessandro made no answer. Why was it that it did not please him,—this suggestion of speaking to Ramona of his plan for Felipe's welfare? He could not have told; but he did not wish to speak of it to her. 'I will speak to the Senora,' he said; and as luck would have it, at that moment the Senora stood in the doorway, come to ask after Juan Can's health. The suggestion of the raw-hide bed struck her favorably. She herself had, in her youth, heard much of their virtues, and slept on them. 'Yes,' she said, 'they are good. We will try it. It was only yesterday that Senor Felipe was complaining of the bed he lies on; and when he was well, he thought nothing could be so good; he brought it here, at a great price, for me, but I could not lie on it. It seemed as if it would throw me off as soon as I lay down; it is a cheating device, like all these innovations the Americans have brought into the country. But Senor Felipe till now thought it a luxury; now he tosses on it, and says it is throwing him all the time.' Alessandro smiled, in spite of his reverence for the Senora. 'I once lay down on one myself, Senora,' he said, 'and that was what I said to my father. It was like a wild horse under me, making himself ready to buck. I thought perhaps the invention was of the saints, that men should not sleep too long.' 'There is a pile of raw-hides,' said Juan, 'well cured, but not too stiff; Juan Jose was to have sent them off to-day to be sold; one of those will be just right. It must not be too dry.' 'The fresher the better,' said Alessandro, 'so it have no dampness. Shall I make the bed, Senora?' he asked, 'and will the Senora permit that I make it on the veranda? I was just asking Juan Can if he thought I might be so bold as to ask you to let me bring Senor Felipe into the outer air. With us, it is thought death to be shut up in walls, as he has been so long. Not till we are sure to die, do we go into the dark like that.' The Senora hesitated. She did not share Alessandro's prejudice in favor of fresh air. 'Night and day both?' she said. 'Surely it is not well to sleep out in the night?' 'That is the best of all, Senora,' replied Alessandro, earnestly. 'I beg the Senora to try it. If Senor Felipe have not mended greatly after the first night he had so slept, then Alessandro will be a liar.' 'No, only mistaken,' said the Senora, gently. She felt herself greatly drawn to this young man by his devotion, as she thought, of Felipe. 'When I die and leave Felipe here,' she had more than once said to herself, 'it would be a great good to him to have such a servant as this on the place.' 'Very well, Alessandro,' she replied; 'make the bed, and we will try it at once.' This was early in the forenoon. The sun was still high in the west, when Ramona, sitting as usual in the veranda, at her embroidery, saw Alessandro coming, followed by two men, bearing the raw-hide bed. 'What can that be?' she said. 'Some new invention of Alessandro's, but for what?' 'A bed for the Senor Felipe, Senorita,' said Alessandro, running lightly up the steps. 'The Senora has given permission to place it here on the veranda, and Senor Felipe is to lie here day and night; and it will be a marvel in your eyes how he will gain strength. It is the close room which is keeping him weak now; he has no illness.' 'I believe that is the truth, Alessandro,' exclaimed Ramona; 'I have been thinking the same thing. My head aches after I am in that room but an hour, and when I come here I am well. But the nights too, Alessandro? Is it not harmful to sleep out in the night air?' 'Why, Senorita?' asked Alessandro, simply. And Ramona had no answer, except, 'I do not know; I have always heard so.' 'My people do not think so,' replied Alessandro; 'unless it is cold, we like it better. It is good, Senorita, to look up at the sky in the night.' 'I should think it would be,' cried Ramona. 'I never thought of it. I should like to do it.' Alessandro was busy, with his face bent down, arranging the bedstead in a sheltered corner of the veranda. If his face had been lifted, Ramona would have seen a look on it that would have startled her more than the one she had surprised a few days previous, after the incident with Margarita. All day there had been coming and going in Alessandro's brain a confused procession of thoughts, vague yet intense. Put in words, they would have been found to be little more than ringing changes on this idea: 'The Senorita Ramona has Indian blood in her veins. The Senorita Ramona is alone. The Senora loves her not. Indian blood! Indian blood!' These, or something like them, would have been the words; but Alessandro did not put them in words. He only worked away on the rough posts for Senor Felipe's bedstead, hammered, fitted, stretched the raw-hide and made it tight and firm, driving every nail, striking every blow, with a bounding sense of exultant strength, as if there were suddenly all around him a new heaven and a new earth. Now, when he heard Ramona say suddenly in her girlish, eager tone, 'It must be; I never thought of it; I should like to try it,' these vague confused thoughts of the day, and the day's bounding sense of exultant strength, combined in a quick vision before Alessandro's eyes,—a vision of starry skies overhead, Ramona and himself together, looking up to them. But when he raised his head, all he said was, 'There, Senorita! That is all firm, now. If Senor Felipe will let me lay him an this bed, he will sleep as he has not slept since he fell ill.' Ramona ran eagerly into Felipe's room, 'The bed is all ready on the veranda,' she exclaimed. 'Shall Alessandro come in and carry you out?' Felipe looked up, startled. The Senora turned on Ramona that expression of gentle, resigned displeasure, which always hurt the girl's sensitive nature far worse than anger. 'I had not spoken to Felipe yet of the change, Ramona,' she said. 'I supposed that Alessandro would have informed me when the bed was ready; I am sorry you came in so suddenly. Felipe is still very weak, you see.' 'What is it? What is it?' exclaimed Felipe, impatiently. As soon as it was explained to him, he was like a child in his haste to be moved. 'That's just what I needed!' he exclaimed. 'This cursed bed racks every bone in my body, and I have longed for the sun more than ever a thirsty man longed for
