ut pallid and emaciated countenance of Rita, was
seen gazing through the strong bars which traversed the aperture.

"Jaime!" she repeated; "Jaime, I would speak with you."

Upon seeing whom it was who thus addressed him, the gipsy's alarm
ceased. He deliberately put on and knotted his sash; and casting his
jacket over his shoulder, turned to leave the spot.

"Jaime!" cried Rita for the third time, "come hither, I implore you."

The gipsy shook his head, and was walking slowly away, his face,
however, still turned towards the fair prisoner, when she suddenly
exclaimed--

"Behold! For one minute's conversation it is yours."

And in the shadow cast by the embrasure of the casement, Jaime saw a
sparkle, the cause of which his covetous eye at once detected. Three
bounds, and he stood under the window. Rita passed her arm through the
bars, and a jewelled ring dropped into his extended palm.

"_Hermoso!_" exclaimed the esquilador, his eyes sparkling almost as
vividly as the stones that excited his admiration. "Beautiful! Diamonds
of the finest water!"

The shock of her father's death, coupled with previous fatigue and
excitement, had thrown Rita into a delirious fever, which for more than
three weeks confined her to her bed. Within a few hours of her arrival
at the convent, Don Baltasar had been compelled to leave it to resume
his military duties; and he had not again returned, although, twice
during her illness, he sent the gipsy to obtain intelligence of her
health. On learning her convalescence, he dispatched him thither for a
third time, with a letter to Rita, urging her acceptance of his
hand--their union having been, as he assured her, her father's latest
wish. As her nearest surviving relative, he had assumed the office of
her guardian, and allotted to her the convent as a residence; until such
time as other arrangements could be made, or until she should be
willing to give him a nearer right to protect her. Jaime had now been
two days at the convent awaiting a reply to this letter, without which
Don Baltasar had forbidden him to return. This reply, however, Rita,
indignant at the restraint imposed upon her, had as yet, in spite of the
arguments of the abbess, shown no disposition to pen.

With her forehead pressed against the bars of the window, Rita noted the
delight manifested by the gipsy at the present she had made him. She had
already observed him feasting his eyes with the sight of his money; and
althou