a sat beside her with bowed head. An aged crone brewed
herbs over a stove. The dingy little house faced the hills and was dimly
lighted by the fading rays of the sun struggling through the dark pine
woods.

"Holy Mary, Faquita!" said Francesca, in a loud whisper. "Does Liseta
die?"

Faquita sprang to her feet. Her cross old face was drawn with misery.
"Go, go!" she said, waving her arms, "I want none of you."

The next evening she sat in the same position, her eyes fixed upon the
shrinking features of the child. The crone had gone. She heard the door
open, and turned with a scowl. But it was La Tulita that entered and
came rapidly to the head of the bed. The girl's eyes were swollen, her
dress and hair disordered.

"I have come to you because you are in trouble," she said. "I, too, am
in trouble. Ay, my Faquita!"

The old woman put up her arms and drew the girl down to her lap. She had
never touched her idol before, but sorrow levels even social barriers.

"Pobrecita!" she said, and the girl cried softly on her shoulder.

"Will he come back, Faquita?"

"Surely, ninita. No man could forget you."

"But it is so far."

"Think of what Don Vicente do for Dona Ysabel, mijita."

"But he is an American. Oh, no, it is not that I doubt him. He loves me!
It is so far, like another world. And the ocean is so big and cruel."

"We ask the priest to say a mass."

"Ah, my Faquita! I will go to the church to-morrow morning. How glad I
am that I came to thee." She kissed the old woman warmly, and for the
moment Faquita forgot her trouble.

But the child threw out its arms and moaned. La Tulita pushed the hair
out of her eyes and brought the medicine from the stove, where it
simmered unsavourily. The child swallowed it painfully, and Faquita
shook her head in despair. At the dawn it died. As La Tulita laid her
white fingers on the gaping eyelids, Faquita rose to her feet. Her ugly
old face was transfigured. Even the grief had gone out of it. For a
moment she was no longer a woman, but one of the most subtle creations
of the Catholic religion conjoined with racial superstitions.

"As the moon dieth and cometh to life again," she repeated with a sort
of chanting cadence, "so man, though he die, will live again. Is it
not better that she will wander forever through forests where crystal
streams roll over golden sands, than grow into wickedness, and go
out into the dark unrepenting, perhaps, to be bitten by serpents and
sco