it to her lips, but immediately wiped them from fear of contagion, for
that locket set with diamonds and emeralds had come from a leper. Ah,
then, if she should catch that disease she could not get married.

As it became lighter, she could see her grandfather seated in a
corner, following all her movements with his eyes, so she caught up her
_tampipi_ of clothes and approached him smilingly to kiss his hand. The
old man blessed her silently, while she tried to appear merry. "When
father comes back, tell him that I have at last gone to college--my
mistress talks Spanish. It's the cheapest college I could find."

Seeing the old man's eyes fill with tears, she placed the _tampipi_
on her head and hastily went downstairs, her slippers slapping merrily
on the wooden steps. But when she turned her head to look again at
the house, the house wherein had faded her childhood dreams and her
maiden illusions, when she saw it sad, lonely, deserted, with the
windows half closed, vacant and dark like a dead man's eyes, when
she heard the low rustling of the bamboos, and saw them nodding in
the fresh morning breeze as though bidding her farewell, then her
vivacity disappeared; she stopped, her eyes filled with tears, and
letting herself fall in a sitting posture on a log by the wayside
she broke out into disconsolate tears.

Juli had been gone several hours and the sun was quite high overhead
when Tandang Selo gazed from the window at the people in their festival
garments going to the town to attend the high mass. Nearly all led
by the hand or carried in their arms a little boy or girl decked out
as if for a fiesta.

Christmas day in the Philippines is, according to the elders, a fiesta