and you ruin her."

"Ruin her?"

"Ruin her happiness--the same thing."

Felipa had a dog, a second self--a great gaunt yellow creature of
unknown breed, with crooked legs, big feet and the name Drollo. What
Drollo meant, or whether it was an abbreviation, we never knew, but
there was a certain satisfaction in it, for the dog was droll: the fact
that the Minorcan title, whatever it was, meant nothing of that kind,
made it all the better. We never saw Felipa without Drollo. "They look
a good deal alike," observed Christine--"the same coloring."

"For shame!" I said.

But it was true. The child's bronzed yellow skin and soft eyes were not
unlike the dog's, but her head was crowned with a mass of short black
curls, while Drollo had only his two great flapping ears and his low
smooth head. Give him an inch or two more of skull, and what a creature
a dog would be! For love and faithfulness even now what man can match
him? But, although ugly, Felipa was a picturesque little object always,
whether attired in boy's clothes or in her own forlorn bodice and skirt.
Olive-hued and meagre-faced, lithe and thin, she flew over the pine
barrens like a creature of air, laughing to feel her short curls toss
and her thin childish arms buoyed up on the breeze as she ran, with
Drollo barking behind. For she loved the winds, and always knew when
they were coming--whether down from the north, in from the ocean, or
across from the Gulf of Mexico: she watched for them, sitting in the
doorway, where she could feel their first breath, and she taught us the