Her face shone with grave sacrificial tenderness, in the light of
which the shortcomings of her uncouth dress and looks were for once
without significance.

"She's a good woman," said the doctor, as he rode away, "though she
wears her womanhood so ungraciously--as a rough husk rather than a
flower. All the same, she's laying up misery for herself in her
devotion to this fractious child; I wish I'd had no hand in it!"

Jane early came to feel what burs were in the wind for her. Lola soon
returned to the world, staring wonderingly about; but even in the first
moment she winced and turned her face away from Jane's eager gaze. As
the girl shrank back into the pillows, Jane's lips quivered.

"Goose that I am!" she thought. "Of course my looks are strange to her!
It'd be funny if she took to me right off. I aint good-looking. And her
ma was real handsome!" For once in her life Jane sighed a little over
her own plainness. "Children love their mothers even when they're plumb
homely!" she encouraged herself. "Maybe Lola'll like me, in spite of my
not being well-favored, when she finds how much I think of her."

As time passed, and Lola, with her arm in a sling, began to sit up and
to creep about, there was little in her manner to show the wisdom of
Jane's cheerful forecast. The girl was still and reserved, as if some
ancient Aztec strain predominated in her over all others. She watched
the Vigils playing, the kids gamboling, the magpies squabbling; but
never a lighter look stirred the chill calm of her little,
russet-toned features, or the sombre depths of her dark, long eyes.

Jane watched her in despair. "I'm afraid you aint very well contented,
Lola," she said, one day. "Is there anything any one can do?" Lola was
sitting in the August sunshine. A little quiver passed through her.

"I want to hear from my father," she said. "Has he--written?" Her voice
was wishful, indeed, and Jane colored.

"I guess he's been so busy he hasn't got round to it yet," she said,
lightly.

"I thought he hadn't," said Lola, quickly. "I--didn't expect it quite
yet. He hates to write." Her accent was sharp with anxiety as she
added, "But of course he sends the--board-money for me--he would
remember that?" Evidently she recalled the Senora Vigil's questions and
doubts on this subject, for there was such intensity of apprehension in
her look that Jane felt herself full of pain.

"Of course he would remember it, my dear!" she said, on the inst