She said she herself would tell me when it was proper for me to know. But she never has.' How the secret trembled on Alessandro's lips now. Ramona had never seemed so near, so intimate, so trusting. What would happen if he were to tell her the truth? Would the sudden knowledge draw her closer to him, or repel her? 'Have you never asked her again?' he said. Ramona looked up astonished. 'No one ever disobeyed the Senora,' she said quickly. 'I would!' exclaimed Alessandro. 'You may think so,' said Ramona, 'but you couldn't. When you tried, you would find you couldn't. I did ask Father Salvierderra once.' 'What did he say?' asked Alessandro, breathless. 'The same thing. He said I must not ask; I was not old enough. When the time came, I would be told,' answered Ramona, sadly. 'I don't see what they can mean by the time's coming. What do you suppose they meant?' 'I do not know the ways of any people but my own, Senorita,' replied Alessandro. 'Many things that your people do, and still more that these Americans do, are to me so strange, I know nothing what they mean. Perhaps they do not know who was your mother?' 'I am sure they do,' answered Ramona, in a low tone, as if the words were wrung from her. 'But let us talk about something else, Alessandro; not about sad things, about pleasant things. Let us talk about your staying here.' 'Would it be truly a pleasure to the Senorita Ramona, if I stayed?' said Alessandro. 'You know it would,' answered Ramona, frankly, yet with a tremor in her voice, which Alessandro felt. 'I do not see what we could any of us do without you. Felipe says he shall not let you go.' Alessandro's face glowed. 'It must be as my father says, Senorita,' he said. 'A messenger came from him yesterday, and I sent him back with a letter telling him what the Senor Felipe had proposed to me, and asking him what I should do. My father is very old, Senorita, and I do not see how he can well spare me. I am his only child, and my mother died years ago. We live alone together in our house, and when I am away he is very lonely. But he would like to have me earn the wages, I know, and I hope he will think it best for me to stay. There are many things we want to do for the village; most of our people are poor, and can do little more than get what they need to eat day by day, and my father wishes to see them better off before he dies. Now that the Americans are coming in all around us, he is afraid and anxious all the time. He wants to get a big fence built around our land, so as to show where it is; but the people cannot take much time to work on the fence; they need all their time to work for themselves and their families. Indians have a hard time to live now, Senorita. Were you ever in Temecula?' 'No,' said Ramona. 'Is it a large town?' Alessandro sighed. 'Dear Senorita, it is not a town; it is only a little village not more than twenty houses in all, and some of those are built only of tule. There is a chapel, and a graveyard. We built an adobe wall around the graveyard last year. That my father said we would do, before we built the fence round the village.' 'How many people are there in the village?' asked Ramona. 'Nearly two hundred, when they are all there; but many of them are away most of the time. They must go where they can get work; they are hired by the farmers, or to do work on the great ditches, or to go as shepherds; and some of them take their wives and children with them. I do not believe the Senorita has ever seen any very poor people.' 'Oh, yes, I have, Alessandro, at Santa Barbara. There were many poor people there, and the Sisters used to give them food every week.' 'Indians?' said Alessandro. Ramona colored. 'Yes,' she said, 'some of them were, but not like your men, Alessandro. They were very different; miserable looking; they could not read nor write, and they seemed to have no ambition.' 'That is the trouble,' said Alessandro, 'with so many of them; it is with my father's people, too. They say, 'What is the use?' My father gets in despair with them, because they will not learn better. He gives them a great deal, but they do not seem to be any better off for it. There is only one other man in our village who can read and write, besides my father and me, Senorita; and yet my father is all the time begging them to come to his house and learn of him. But they say they have no time; and indeed there is much truth in that, Senorita. You see everybody has troubles, Senorita.' Ramona had been listening with sorrowful face. All this was new to her. Until to-night, neither she nor Alessandro had spoken of private and personal matters. 'Ah, but these are real troubles,' she said. 'I do not think mine were real troubles at all. I wish I could do something for your people, Alessandro. If the village were only near by, I could teach them, could I not? I could teach them to read. The Sisters always said, that to teach the ignorant and the poor was the noblest work one could do. I wish I could teach your people. Have you any relatives there besides your father? Is there any one in the village that you—love, Alessandro?' Alessandro was too much absorbed in thoughts of his people, to observe the hesitating emphasis with which Ramona asked this question. 'Yes, Senorita, I love them all. They are like my brothers and sisters, all of my father's people,' he said; 'and I am unhappy about them all the time.' During the whole of this conversation Ramona had had an undercurrent of thought going on, which was making her uneasy. The more Alessandro said about his father and his people, the more she realized that he was held to Temecula by bonds that would be hard to break, the more she feared his father would not let him remain away from home for any length of time. At the thought of his going away, her very heart sickened. Taking a sudden step towards him, she said abruptly, 'Alessandro, I am afraid your father will not give his consent to your staying here.' 'So am I, Senorita,' he replied sadly. 'And you would not stay if he did not approve of it, of course,' she said. 'How could I, Senorita?' 'No,' she said, 'it would not be right;' but as she said these words, the tears filled her eyes. Alessandro saw them. The world changed in that second. 'Senorita! Senorita Ramona!' he cried, 'tears have come in your eyes! O Senorita, then you will not be angry if I say that I love you!' and Alessandro trembled with the terror and delight of having said the words. Hardly did he trust his palpitating senses to be telling him true the words that followed, quick, firm, though only in a whisper,—'I know that you love me, Alessandro, and I am glad of it!' Yes, this was what the Senorita Ramona was saying! And when he stammered, 'But you, Senorita, you do not—you could not—' 'Yes, Alessandro, I do—I love you!' in the same clear, firm whisper; and the next minute Alessandro's arms were around Ramona, and he had kissed her, sobbing rather than saying, 'O Senorita, do you mean that you will go with me? that you are mine? Oh, no, beloved Senorita, you cannot mean that!' But he was kissing her. He knew she did mean it; and Ramona, whispering, 'Yes, Alessandro, I do mean it; I will go with you,' clung to him with her hands, and kissed him, and repeated it, 'I will go with you, I love you.' And then, just then, came the Senora's step, and her sharp cry of amazement, and there she stood, no more than an arm's-length away, looking at them with her indignant, terrible eyes. What an hour this for Alessandro to be living over and over, as he crouched in the darkness, watching! But the bewilderment of his emotions did not dull his senses. As if stalking deer in a forest, he listened for sounds from the house. It seemed strangely still. As the darkness
