gness to expose her to the Senora's
displeasure, which would be great, and terrible to bear. She was also
aware of an unwillingness to bring anything to light which would reflect
ever so lightly upon Alessandro in the Senora's estimation. "And he is
not really to blame," thought Ramona, "if a girl follows him about and
makes free with him. She must have seen him at the willows, and gone
down there on purpose to meet him, making a pretext of the washing. For
she never in this world would have gone to wash in the dark, as he must
have known, if he were not a fool. He is not the sort of person, it
seems to me, to be fooling with maids. He seems as full of grave thought
as Father Salvierderra. If I see anything amiss in Margarita to-day, I
shall speak to her myself, kindly but firmly, and tell her to conduct
herself more discreetly."

Then, as the other maiden's had done, Ramona's thoughts, being
concentrated on Alessandro, altered a little from their first key, and
grew softer and more imaginative; strangely enough, taking some of the
phrases, as it were, out of the other maiden's mouth.

"I never saw such eyes as Alessandro has," she said. "I wonder any girl
should make free with him. Even I myself, when he fixes his eyes on me,
feel a constraint. There is something in them like the eyes of a saint,
so solemn, yet so mild. I am sure he is very good."

And so the day opened; and if there were abroad in the valley that day
a demon of mischief, let loose to tangle the skeins of human affairs,
things could not have fallen out better for his purpose than they did;
for it was not yet ten o'clock of the morning, when Ramona, sitting at
her embroidery in the veranda, half hid behind the vines, saw Alessandro
going with his pruning-knife in his hand towards the artichoke-patch at
the east of the garden, and joining the almond orchard. "I wonder
what he is going to do there," she thought. "He can't be going to cut
willows;" and her eyes followed him till he disappeared among the trees.

Ramona was not the only one who saw this. Margarita, looking from the
east window of Father Salvierderra's room, saw the same thing. "Now's
my chance!" she said; and throwing a white reboso coquettishly over her
head, she slipped around the corner of the house. She ran swiftly in the
direction in which Alessandro had gone. The sound of her steps reached
Ramona, who, lifting her eyes, took in the whole situation at a glance.
There was no possible