the woods, almost crying. "How strange my answers must appear to her!"
murmured she. "How I do wish I could go about openly, like other
people! I am so tired of all this concealment!" She neither jumped,
nor danced, nor sung, on her way homeward. She seemed to be revolving
something in her mind very busily.

After tea, as she and Rosa were sitting alone in the twilight, her
sister, observing that she was unusually silent, said, "What are you
thinking of, Mignonne?"

"I am thinking of the time we passed in Nassau," replied she, "and of
that Yankee lady who seemed to take such a fancy to me when she came
to Madame Conquilla's to look at the shell-work.

"I remember your talking about her," rejoined Rosa. "You thought her
beautiful."

"Yes," said Floracita, "and it was a peculiar sort of beauty. She
wasn't the least like you or Mamita. Everything about her was violet.
Her large gray eyes sometimes had a violet light in them. Her hair was
not exactly flaxen, it looked like ashes of violets. She always wore
fragrant violets. Her ribbons and dresses were of some shade of
violet; and her breastpin was an amethyst set with pearls. Something
in her ways, too, made me think of a violet. I think she knew it, and
that was the reason she always wore that color. How delicate she was!
She must have been very beautiful when she was young."

"You used to call her the Java sparrow," said Rosa.

"Yes, she made me think of my little Java sparrow, with pale