“I swear she taught me this: that she used to hold me in her arms, and clasp my hands while she made me say my little prayer to ‘Jesus meek and mild,’ while she told me the grand old Bible stories, and stories that to me were even sweeter of the God who became a man. She taught me to begin and end each day with a prayer. She did her best in her sweet, wise, gentle way to make me good. Dare any one say that a child so trained was spoiled, as was said of me? Dare any one accuse my mother of corrupting me? my mother, who was an angel, and who smiles now among the angels of God? Then my enemies triumphed over me; they said Spain was the land of gallantry; they smiled false, devilish smiles and shrugged their shoulders as though they would say my mother was a Spaniard, therefore corrupt; that I was born of a Spanish mother, therefore I was corrupt, too. I dare say to you what it would be useless for me to say to others. I have never, in one single instance, gone against my mother’s teaching. See, I could fold my hands now and pray to ‘Jesus, meek and mild,’ as I did years ago at my mother’s knee. Could I do that if I were what they say? Would not God, for such hypocrisy, strike me dead? If my mother had lived, all would have been well with me; but she was never strong, and the wind that blows over Granada is not always healthy. I do not know why she died. I saw her fading day by day. She grew more beautiful, more lovable; it was the angel nature drawing nearer. People used to look at me and say: ‘Poor child, she is very young and very tender to have so great a trouble,’ and then I knew my mother was dying. Perhaps you never watched how gently those fair English daisies close their golden eyes, nor how softly a flower dies while the sun kisses it. Even so my mother died; no one knew when. She was looking at me with a strange, solemn brightness in her eyes, and she said: ‘You will come to me, _Julietta, mia_; you will come to heaven, to me?’” “I cried out ‘Yes!’ and fell weeping on her neck; when I raised my eyes hers were closed, and her face was whiter than a lily leaf. Do you think if I were what they say, light of love, light of fame, that I dare remember and love, and long to meet again my dead, dear, young mother? Rather should I shrink from her and find heaven where she was not.” CHAPTER XL. LADY PELHAM’S STORY.