is
for her soul in the burning sands of her existence. That sentiment could
not be measured or estimated by any other. Did it not, in fact, comprise
all human sentiments, all heavenly hopes? La Marana was so resolved not
to soil her daughter with any stain other than that of birth, that she
sought to invest her with social virtues; she even obliged the young
father to settle a handsome patrimony upon the child and to give her
his name. Thus the girl was not know as Juana Marana, but as Juana di
Mancini.

Then, after seven years of joy, and kisses, and intoxicating happiness,
the time came when the poor Marana deprived herself of her idol. That
Juana might never bow her head under their hereditary shame, the mother
had the courage to renounce her child for her child's sake, and to seek,
not without horrible suffering, for another mother, another home, other
principles to follow, other and saintlier examples to imitate. The
abdication of a mother is either a revolting act or a sublime one; in
this case, was it not sublime?

At Tarragona a lucky accident threw the Lagounias in her way, under
circumstances which enabled her to recognize the integrity of the
Spaniard and the noble virtue of his wife. She came to them at a time
when her proposal seemed that of a liberating angel. The fortune and
honor of the merchant, momentarily compromised, required a prompt and
secret succor. La Marana made over to the husband the whole sum she
had obtained of the father for Juana's "dot," requiring neither
acknowledgment nor interest. According to her own code of honor, a
contract, a trust, was a thing of the heart, and God its supreme
judge. After stating the miseries of her position to Dona Lagounia, she
confided her daughter and her daughter's fortune to the fine old Spanish
honor, pure and spotless, which filled the precincts of that ancient
house. Dona Lagounia had no child, and she was only too happy to obtain
one to nurture. The mother then parted from her Juana, convinced that
the child's future was safe, and certain of having found her a mother, a
mother who would bring her up as a Mancini, and not as a Marana.

Leaving her child in the simple modest house of the merchant where the
burgher virtues reigned, where religion and sacred sentiments and honor
filled the air, the poor prostitute, the disinherited mother was enabled
to bear her trial by visions of Juana, virgin, wife, and mother, a
mother throughout her life. On the th