tears streamed down Ramona's face as she bade them farewell. She
embraced again and again the young mother who had for so many days
suckled her child, even, it was said, depriving her own hardier babe
that Ramona's should not suffer. "Sister, you have given me my child,"
she cried; "I can never thank you; I will pray for you all my life."

She made no inquiries as to Felipe's plans. Unquestioningly, like a
little child, she resigned herself into his hands. A power greater than
hers was ordering her way; Felipe was its instrument. No other voice
spoke to guide her. The same old simplicity of acceptance which had
characterized her daily life in her girlhood, and kept her serene
and sunny then,--serene under trials, sunny in her routine of little
duties,--had kept her serene through all the afflictions, and calm,
if not sunny, under all the burdens of her later life; and it did not
desert her even now.

Aunt Ri gazed at her with a sentiment as near to veneration as her dry,
humorous, practical nature was capable of feeling. "I allow I donno but
I sh'd cum ter believin' in saints tew," she said, "ef I wuz ter live
'long side er thet gal. 'Pears like she wuz suthin' more 'n human. 'T
beats me plum out, ther way she takes her troubles. Thar's sum would
say she hedn't no feelin'; but I allow she hez more 'n most folks. I kin
see, 'tain't thet. I allow I didn't never expect ter think 's well uv
prayin' to picters, 'n' strings er beads, 'n' sech; but ef 't 's thet
keeps her up ther way she's kept up, I allow thar's more in it 'n
it's hed credit fur. I ain't gwine ter say enny more agin it' nor agin
Injuns. 'Pears like I'm gittin' heaps er new idears inter my head, these
days. I'll turn Injun, mebbe, afore I git through!"

The farewell to Aunt Ri was hardest of all. Ramona clung to her as to a
mother. At times she felt that she would rather stay by her side than go
home with Felipe; then she reproached herself for the thought, as for a
treason and ingratitude. Felipe saw the feeling, and did not wonder at
it. "Dear girl," he thought; "it is the nearest she has ever come to
knowing what a mother's love is like!" And he lingered in San Bernardino
week after week, on the pretence that Ramona was not yet strong enough
to bear the journey home, when in reality his sole motive for staying
was his reluctance to deprive her of Aunt Ri's wholesome and cheering
companionship.

Aunt Ri was busily at work on a rag carpet for the Indian Ag