Madre Moreno never came again to my house, but always seemed to take an
interest in me, who, when I reached an age when I could be trusted away
from the garden, would wander with her through the woods while she was
gathering her herbs, and from her I learned much that was of great
benefit to me in after years. After my return from Mexico, we greeted in
friendly manner, and she seemed to take great pleasure in my company.

I never approached the ruin without a strange foreboding of something
terrible about to happen, which always disappeared after I had been
there a while and the charming beauty of the quiet spot had turned my
thoughts into pleasanter channels; perhaps the feeling of fear was
attributable to the stories I had heard during childhood, and had never
outgrown.

One day I saw Madre Moreno's red cloak showing out brightly from behind
the rank growths of nightshade, the tenderer leaves of which she seemed
to be carefully gathering. She was muttering to herself words
unintelligible to me, and did not seem to notice me, although I stood
for a long time very near where she was at work.

"Good morning, Madre; you are very busy to-day," I said, after a while.
She looked up, nodding in a friendly way, but not answering, while she
continued her jargon as she carefully laid in the basket the
oval-shaped, pointed leaves. As I drew nearer I noticed for the first
time that it was not the common nightshade, which grew wild about the
country, but was the atropa, a plant not indigenous to California. It
was in flower; the bell-shaped blossoms, of a dead, violet-brown colour,
with the green leaves about them, made a disagreeable combination seldom
seen in any of nature's pictures.