went to the next door of the corridor. It was half open, and she glanced
in. The Father was not there, but she saw, bending over a table set
against the window, a young man. His back was turned to her, and he was
so intent upon his occupation that he had not heard her step. She should
have turned and gone, for the rules were strict, and forbade
conversation between the girls and young men of the Mission: but her
curiosity was keen to know what the Indian boy (as she knew he must be)
was doing in the Father's quarters, and what it could be that kept him
so absorbed. Moreover, a spirit of defiance was in her. If the Father
found her loitering there he would reprimand her. Well, she would break
the rules: she was no Indian; and if he caught her there she would tell
him so. Yes, she would see what the young man was doing; she wanted to
know, and she would know. Quietly she stole into the room and edged
round to one side go that she could see partly across the table. The
young man was painting, in wonderful colors, on a sheet of parchment,
painting wonderful things--beasts, and birds, and flowers, and even
angels, a wonder of wonders to the simple girl.

At some involuntary sound that she made, the young man--it was Te--filo
--turned and saw her. Her eyes were fixed upon him, wide with wonder,
and her hands half raised in childlike rapture, while her slender
figure, so different from the heavier forms of the Indian girls, gave
her, to his eyes, the look and bearing of one of the very angels he had
been copying. It was a marvel on his side, too; and for a few moments
the two regarded each other, while love (that is born so often of sudden
wonder in innocent hearts) awoke and stirred in both their breasts. They
had often met before, but it had been casually, and the hour had not
been ripe. Now he saw her and loved her; she saw him, an Indian, indeed,
but transfigured, for he was an Indian who worked wonders. And the
Spaniard in her gave way, that moment, to the Indian, and she loved an