t enough to make her a passionate lover of verse and romance.
For serious study or for deep thought she had no vocation. She was a
simple, joyous, gentle, clinging, faithful nature, like a clear brook
rippling along in the sun,--a nature as unlike as possible to the
Senora's, with its mysterious depths and stormy, hidden currents.

Of these Ramona was dimly conscious, and at times had a tender,
sorrowful pity for the Senora, which she dared not show, and could only
express by renewed industry, and tireless endeavor to fulfil every duty
possible in the house. This gentle faithfulness was not wholly lost on
Senora Moreno, though its source she never suspected; and it won no new
recognition from her for Ramona, no increase of love.

But there was one on whom not an act, not a look, not a smile of all
this graciousness was thrown away. That one was Felipe. Daily more and
more he wondered at his mother's lack of affection for Ramona. Nobody
knew so well as he how far short she stopped of loving her. Felipe knew
what it meant, how it felt, to be loved by the Senora Moreno. But Felipe
had learned while he was a boy that one sure way to displease his mother
was to appear to be aware that she did not treat Ramona as she treated
him. And long before he had become a man he had acquired the habit of
keeping to himself most of the things he thought and felt about his
little playmate sister,--a dangerous habit, out of which were slowly
ripening bitter fruits for the Senora's gathering in later years.

IV

IT was longer even than the Senora had thought it would be, before
Father Salvierderra arrived. The old man had grown feeble during the
year that she had not seen him, and it was a very short day's journey
that he could make now without too great fatigue. It was not only his
body that had failed. He had lost heart; and the miles which would have
been nothing to him, had he walked in the companionship of hopeful and
happy thoughts, stretched out wearily as he brooded over sad memories
and still sadder anticipations,--the downfall of the Missions, the loss
of their vast estates, and the growing power of the ungodly in the land.
The final decision of the United States Government in regard to the
Mission-lands had been a terrible blow to him. He had devoutly believed
that ultimate restoration of these great estates to the Church was
inevitable. In the long vigils which he always kept when at home at the
Franciscan Monastery in