a, impetuously; "and who and why, I
intend to know," and she started towards the thicket.

"Do not leave me, good Juanita;" said the young acolyte, grasping the
girl's skirt.

"Nay; run to the hacienda quickly, and leave me to search the thicket.
Run!"

The boy did not wait for a second injunction, but scuttled away, his
long coat catching in the brambles, while Juanita darted like a kitten
into the bushes. Her search was fruitless, however, and she was
returning impatiently, when her quick eye fell upon a letter lying amid
the dried grass where she and Francisco had been seated the moment
before. It had evidently fallen from his breast when he had risen
suddenly, and been overlooked in his alarm. It was Father Pedro's
letter to the Father Superior of San Jose.

In an instant she had pounced upon it as viciously as if it had been
the interloper she was seeking. She knew that she held in her fingers
the secret of Francisco's sudden banishment. She felt instinctively
that this yellowish envelope, with its red string and its blotch of red
seal, was his sentence and her own. The little _mestizo_, had not been
brought up to respect the integrity of either locks or seals, both
being unknown in the patriarchal life of the hacienda. Yet with a
certain feminine instinct she looked furtively around her, and even
managed to dislodge the clumsy wax without marring the pretty effigy of
the crossed keys impressed upon it. Then she opened the letter and
read.

Suddenly she stopped and put back her hair from her brown temples. Then
a succession of burning blushes followed each other in waves from her
neck up, and died in drops of moisture in her eyes. This continued
until she was fairly crying, dropping the letter from her hands and
rocking to and fro. In the midst of this she quickly stopped again; the
clouds broke, a sunshine of laughter started from her eyes, she laughed
shyly, she laughed loudly, she laughed hysterically. Then she stopped
again as suddenly, knitted her brows, swooped down once more upon the
letter, and turned to fly. But at the same moment the letter was
quietly but firmly taken from her hand, and Mr. Jack Cranch stood
beside her.

Juanita was crimson, but unconquered. She mechanically held out her
hand for the letter; the American took her little fingers, kissed them,
and said:

"How are you again?"

"The letter," replied Juanita, with a strong disposition to stamp her
foot.

"But," said Cranch, with