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338 But Ramona would not run with her hand in Baba's mane this winter. There was a new work for her, indoors. In a rustic cradle, which Alessandro had made, under her directions, of the woven twigs, like the great outdoor acorn-granaries, only closer woven, and of an oval shape, and lifted from the floor by four uprights of red manzanita stems,—in this cradle, on soft white wool fleeces, covered with white homespun blankets, lay Ramona's baby, six months old, lusty, strong, and beautiful, as only children born of great love and under healthful conditions can be. This child was a girl, to Alessandro's delight; to Ramona's regret,—so far as a loving mother can feel regret connected with her first-born. Ramona had wished for an Alessandro; but the disappointed wish faded out of her thoughts, hour by hour, as she gazed into her baby-girl's blue eyes,—eyes so blue that their color was the first thing noticed by each person who looked at her.

“Eyes of the sky,” exclaimed Ysidro, when he first saw her.

“Like the mother's,” said Alessandro; on which Ysidro turned an astonished look upon Ramona, and saw for the first time that her eyes, too, were blue.

“Wonderful!” he said. “It is so. I never saw it;” and he wondered in his heart what father it had been, who had given eyes like those to one born of an Indian mother.

“Eyes of the sky,” became at once the baby's name in the village; and Alessandro and Ramona, before they knew it, had fallen into the way of so calling her. But when it came to the christening, they demurred. The news was brought to the village, one Saturday, that Father Gaspara would hold services in the valley the next day, and that he wished all the new-born babes to be brought for christening.