tell you all that I know myself about your
father and your mother. It is very little. Your father died when you
were only two years old. All that you have to do is to be a good child,
and say your prayers, and when Father Salvierderra comes he will be
pleased with you. And he will not be pleased if you ask troublesome
questions. Don't ever speak to me again about this. When the proper time
comes I will tell you myself."

This was when Ramona was ten. She was now nineteen. She had never again
asked the Senora a question bearing on the forbidden subject. She had
been a good child and said her prayers, and Father Salvierderra had been
always pleased with her, growing more and more deeply attached to her
year by year. But the proper time had not yet come for the Senora to
tell her anything more about her father and mother. There were few
mornings on which the girl did not think, "Perhaps it may be to-day
that she will tell me." But she would not ask. Every word of that
conversation was as vivid in her mind as it had been the day it
occurred; and it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that during
every day of the whole nine years had deepened in her heart the
conviction which had prompted the child's question, "Did he know that
you did not want any daughter?"

A nature less gentle than Ramona's would have been embittered, or at
least hardened, by this consciousness. But Ramona's was not. She never
put it in words to herself. She accepted it, as those born deformed seem
sometimes to accept the pain and isolation caused by their deformity,
with an unquestioning acceptance, which is as far above resignation, as
resignation is above rebellious repining.

No one would have known, from Ramona's face, manner, or habitual
conduct, that she had ever experienced a sorrow or had a care. Her face
was sunny, she had a joyous voice, and never was seen to pass a human
being without a cheerful greeting, to highest and lowest the same. Her
industry was tireless. She had had two years at school, in the Convent
of the Sacred Heart at Los Angeles, where the Senora had placed her
at much personal sacrifice, during one of the hardest times the Moreno
estate had ever seen. Here she had won the affection of all the Sisters,
who spoke of her habitually as the "blessed child." They had taught her
all the dainty arts of lace-weaving, embroidery, and simple fashions
of painting and drawing, which they knew; not overmuch learning out of
books, bu