myself among the number, are better at going down."

"Senor," said Felipe earnestly, "I would not say that. You should not
tempt your angel. If one goes down, where is he to stop?"

"Why, Felipe," said I, "I had no guess you were a preacher, and I may
say a good one; but I suppose that is your sister's doing?"

He nodded at me with round eyes.

"Well, then," I continued, "she has doubtless reproved you for your sin
of cruelty?"

"Twelve times!" he cried; for this was the phrase by which the odd
creature expressed the sense of frequency. "And I told her you had done
so--I remembered that," he added proudly--"and she was pleased."

"Then, Felipe," said I, "what were those cries that I heard last night?
for surely they were cries of some creature in suffering."

"The wind," returned Felipe, looking in the fire.

I took his hand in mine, at which, thinking it to be a caress, he smiled
with a brightness of pleasure that came near disarming my resolve. But I
trod the weakness down. "The wind," I repeated; "and yet I think it was
this hand," holding it up, "that had first locked me in." The lad shook
visibly, but answered never a word. "Well," said I, "I am a stranger and
a guest. It is not my part either to meddle or to judge in your affairs;
in these you shall take your sister's counsel, which I cannot doubt to
be excellent. But in so far as concerns my own I will be no man's
prisoner, and I demand that key." Half an hour later my door was
suddenly thrown open, and the key tossed ringing on the floor.

A day or two after I came in from a walk a little before the point of
noon. The Senora was lying lapped in slumber on the threshold of the
recess; the pigeons dozed below the eaves like snowdrifts; the house was
under a deep spell of noontide quiet; and only a wandering and gentle
wind from the mountain stole round the galleries, rustled among the
pomegranates, and pleasantly stirred the shadows. Something in the
stillness moved me to imitation, and I went very lightly across the
court and up the marble staircase. My foot was on the topmost round,
when a door opened, and I found myself face to face with Olalla.
Surprise transfixed me; her loveliness struck to my heart; she glowed in
the deep shadow of the gallery, a gem of colour; her eyes took hold upon
mine and clung there, and bound us together like the joining of hands;
and the moments we thus stood face to face, drinking each other in, were
sacramental and the w