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176 back into its place. Ramona breathed freer. She was not, after all, to be thrust into the wall closet and left to starve. She gazed with wonder at the old battered boxes. What could it all mean?

“Señorita Ramona Ortegna,” began the Señora, drawing up a chair, and seating herself by the table on which stood the iron box, “I will now explain to you why you will not marry the Indian Alessandro.”

At these words, this name, Ramona was herself again,—not her old self, her new self, Alessandro's promised wife. The very sound of his name, even on an enemy's tongue, gave her strength. The terrors fled away. She looked up, first at the Señora, then at the nearest window. She was young and strong; at one bound, if worst came to worst, she could leap through the window, and fly for her life, calling on Alessandro.

“I shall marry the Indian Alessandro, Señora Moreno,” she said, in a tone as defiant, and now almost as insolent, as the Señora's own.

The Señora paid no heed to the words, except to say, “Do not interrupt me again. I have much to tell you;” and opening the box, she lifted out and placed on the table tray after tray of jewels. The sheet of written paper lay at the bottom of the box.

“Do you see this paper, Señorita Ramona?” she asked, holding it up. Ramona bowed her head. “This was written by my sister, the Señora Ortegna, who adopted you and gave you her name. These were her final instructions to me, in regard to the disposition to be made of the property she left to you.”

Ramona's lips parted. She leaned forward, breathless, listening, while the Señora read sentence after sentence. All the pent-up pain, wonder, fear of her childhood and her girlhood, as to the mystery of her birth, swept over her anew, now. Like one hearkening