cloister. Here your complaints can be heard; there you have only the
walls! You are beautiful, very beautiful; you were not made to renounce
the world. Believe me, my child, time alters all things; later you
will forget, you will love, you will love your husband--Linares."

"Either the convent or--death," repeated Maria, with no sign of
yielding.

"Maria," said the father, "I am not young. I cannot watch over you
always; choose something else, find another love, another husband,
anything, what you will!"

"I choose the convent."

"My God, my God!" cried the priest, burying his face in his hands. "You
punish me, be it so! But watch over my daughter!--Maria, you shall
be a nun. I cannot have you die."

Maria took his hands, pressed them, kissed them as she knelt.

"Godfather, my godfather," she said.

"Oh, God!" cried the heart of the father, "thou dost exist, because
thou dost chastise! Take vengeance upon me, but do not strike the
innocent; save my daughter!"

LV.

THE NOCHEBUENA.

Up on the side of the mountain, where a torrent springs, a cabin hides
under the trees, built on their gnarled trunks. Over its thatched roof
creep the branches of the gourd, heavy with fruit and flowers. Antlers
and wild boars' heads, some of them bearing their long tusks, ornament
the rustic hearth. It is the home of a Tagalo family living from the
chase and the cup of the woods.

Under the shade of a tree, the grandfather is making brooms from the
veins of palm leaves, while a girl fills a basket with eggs, lemons,
and vegetables. Two children, a boy and a girl, are playing beside
another boy, pale and serious, with great, deep eyes. We know him. It
is Sisa's son, Basilio.

"When your foot is well," said the little boy, "you will go with us
to the top of the mountain and drink deer's blood and lemon juice;
then you'll grow fat; then I'll show you how to jump from one rock
to another, over the torrent."

Basilio smiled sadly, examined the wound in his foot, and looked at
the sun, which was shining splendidly.

"Sell these brooms, Lucia," said the grandfather to the young girl,
"and buy something for your brothers. To-day is Christmas."

"Fire-crackers, I want fire-crackers!" cried the little boy.

"And what do you want?" the grandfather asked Basilio. The boy got
up and went to the old man.

"Senor," he said, "have I been ill more than a month?"

"Since we found you, faint and covered with wounds, two moon