Page:Helen Hunt--Ramona.djvu/250

244 “What is it?” exclaimed Ramona, wonderingly.

“An Indian word, my dearest one, the name of the bird you are like,—the wood-dove. In the Luiseno tongue that is Majel; that was what I thought my people would have called you, if you had come to dwell among us. It is a beautiful name, Señorita, and is like you.”

Alessandro was still standing. Ramona rose; coming close to him, she laid both her hands on his breast, and her head on her hands, and said: “Alessandro, I have something to tell you. I am an Indian. I belong to your people.”

Alessandro's silence astonished her. “You are surprised,” she said. “I thought you would be glad.”

“The gladness of it came to me long ago, my Señorita,” he said. “I knew it!”

“How?” cried Ramona. “And you never told me, Alessandro!”

“How could I?” he replied. “I dared not. Juan Canito, it was told me.”

“Juan Canito!” said Ramona, musingly. “How could he have known?” Then in a few rapid words she told Alessandro all that the Señora had told her. “Is that what Juan Can said?” she asked.

“All except the father's name,” stammered Alessandro.

“Who did he say was my father?” she asked.

Alessandro was silent.

“It matters not,” said Ramona. “He was wrong. The Señora, of course, knew. He was a friend of hers, and of the Señora Ortegna, to whom he gave me. But I think, Alessandro, I have more of my mother than of my father.”

“Yes, you have, my Señorita,” replied Alessandro, tenderly. “After I knew it, I then saw what it was in your face had always seemed to me like the faces of my own people.”