Her cheeks glowed with a consciousness that her anomalous position was well calculated to excite their curiosity; and she turned away, thinking how different it had been with her mother,--how sheltered and protected she had always been.

She remembered how very rarely her father left home, and how he always hastened to return.

She stood awhile on the veranda, thinking sadly, "If Gerald loves me as Papasito loved Mamita, how can he be contented to leave me so much ?" With a deep sigh she turned and entered the house through an open window.

The sigh changed at once to a bright smile.

The parlor had undergone a wondrous transformation since she last saw it.