The sun was sinking behind Tehachape Mountains, and its parting rays, full of the color of leaf and bough, fell brightly upon the prostrate form of the invalid, and as Murella dropped softly to the ground before a low window, which opened upon the _ramada_, she parted her muslin curtains and gazed devouringly upon the well-knit, shapely form, and the broad-browed, tinted face, while the light faded, and soft voices grew higher as the family supper hour approached, and tinkling sounds from mandolin and guitar filled the night with music. Then, taking a last look, she arose, and, stamping her foot upon the ground, impatiently she ejaculated:— “Oh, bah! He too good for anyting.” She joined the family group at supper with a look of high disdain on her beautiful face, but otherwise undismayed, and ate her _frijoles_ and _tortillas_, and scrambled for the whitest _tomales_ among her younger brothers, very much as if David Morning had overruled his physicians, and departed for Tucson in an ambulance the day after he was wounded, as he had once determined to do, instead of having lain there for a month, drawing first upon her pity, and then upon her fancy, and stirring things in her imagination generally. Late in the moon-lit night, the soft summer winds still busy among the boughs, a sweet girlish voice, melodiously attuned to the notes of the mandolin, ran through the dreams of David Morning, carrying the passionful refrain, “Oh, illustrissimo mia,” and he awoke, and still the sweet refrain, “Oh, illustrissimo mia.” Several days went by, summer days full of work and growth and promise outside, and still Morning was unable to leave the Gonzales ranch. His pulse, which the doctors declared had never regained its normal beat, was low and intermittent, and the hectic flush never left his cheek. At length typhoid fever was developed, and for weeks he lay at the verge of death, and for as many weeks Murella Gonzales sat at his head by day, and made her bed at the foot of his couch by night. The señora, the madroña, even the cocoanut brown _machacha_ of all work, each brought fruit and drink and delicacies to dissuade him from his delirium and tempt him back to health, but Murella sat always with her graceful head resting lightly against his pillow, silent, languid, and lovely. Sometimes the doctors remonstrated and begged her to leave him, but she only said, “_Mañana, mañana_,” and to-morrow never came. But it proved to be only a question of time, and before the gray linings of the poplar had slid into umber, or the pomegranate had gained its full meed of sweet juices, David Morning was brought a picturesque basket of Indian workmanship, quite filled with letters which had found him out, calling him back with the imperative voices of business demands, to take his place again with the rank and file of affairs.