good things on the table.

"What success, Don Carlos, have you found the flowers you were searching
for?"

"Yes, Catalina, I found the plants just where I expected to find them,
and I also found at the old adobe what I did not look for." I then gave
an account of the day, however, making as modest enumeration of the
charms of Madre Moreno's niece, as I was able, for fear of exciting
Catalina's suspicions.

I began to feel that I was much interested in the beautiful Ysidria, and
hated to have old Catalina discover it, for the girls relationship to
the Madre would, I knew, be the cause of much disquiet to the good
woman.

I sat before the door long after supper, building air castles, in all of
which the fair stranger held a place. Her brilliant eyes were always
before my mind, as I had first seen them that afternoon, sometimes of a
deep blue colour, and then in a moment black as jet, when the dilated
pupil covered the iris, and then her pretty smile and graceful form each
had a great and wonderful charm for me.

The only thing that troubled me, and I tried to laugh it out of my
thoughts, was the connection with the reputed witch, but foolish as I
knew such notions to be, I was, however, unable to banish them, and I
often wished that the beautiful Ysidria was any one in the world but the
niece of Ambrosia Moreno. Not that I had any dislike for the Madre, or
that I bore her any ill will for the various misfortunes which had come
to my family through her agency, as the country people believed, but it