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180 handkerchief, she walked away and seated herself again in her chair.

Father Salvierderra! The name smote the Señora like a spear-thrust, There could be no stronger evidence of the abnormal excitement under which she had been laboring for the last twenty-four hours, than the fact that she had not once, during all this time, thought to ask herself what Father Salvierderra would say, or might command, in this crisis. Her religion and the long habit of its outward bonds had alike gone from her in her sudden wrath against Ramona. It was with a real terror that she became conscious of this.

“Father Salvierderra?” she stammered; “he has nothing to do with it.”

But Ramona saw the change in the Señora's face, at the word, and followed up her advantage. “Father Salvierderra has to do with everything,” she said boldly. “He knows Alessandro, He will not forbid me to marry him, and if he did—” Ramona stopped. She also was smitten with a sudden terror at the vista opening before her,—of a disobedience to Father Salvierderra.

“And if he did,” repeated the Señora, eyeing Ramona keenly, “would you disobey him?”

“Yes,” said Ramona.

“I will tell Father Salvierderra what you say,” retorted the Señora, sarcastically, “that he may spare himself the humiliation of laying any commands on you, to be thus disobeyed.”

Ramona's lip quivered, and her eyes filled with the tears which no other of the Señora's taunts had been strong enough to bring. Dearly she loved the old monk; had loved him since her earliest recollection. His displeasure would be far more dreadful to her than the Señora's. His would give her grief; the Señora's, at utmost, only terror.