Rosendo's vivid interest in Carmen's progress was almost pathetic. When in Simití he hung over the child in rapt absorption as she worked out her problems, or recited her lessons to Josè. Often he shook his head in witness of his utter lack of comprehension. But Carmen understood, and that sufficed. His admiration for the priest's learning was deep and reverential. He was a silent worshiper, this great-hearted man, at the shrine of intellect; but, alas! he himself knew only the rudiments, which he had acquired by years of patient, struggling effort, through long days and nights filled with toil. His particular passion was his Castilian mother-tongue; and the precision with which he at times used it, his careful selection of words, and his wide vocabulary, occasioned Josè no little astonishment. One day, after returning from the hills, he approached Josè as the latter was hearing Carmen's lessons, and, with considerable embarrassment, offered him a bit of paper on which were written in his ample hand several verses. Josè read them, and then looked up wonderingly at the old man. "Why, Rosendo, these are beautiful! Where did you get them?" "I--they are mine, Padre," replied Rosendo, his face glowing with pleasure. "Yours! Do you mean that you wrote them?" Josè queried in astonishment. "Yes, Padre. Nights, up in Guamocó, when I had finished my work, and when I was so lonely, I would sometimes light my candle and try to write out the thoughts that came to me." Josè could not keep back the tears. He turned his head, that Rosendo might not see them. Of the three little poems, two were indited to the Virgin Mary, and one to Carmen. He lingered over one of the verses of the latter, for it awoke responsive echoes in his own soul: "Without you, the world--a desert of sadness; But with you, sweet child--a vale of delight; You laugh, like the sunbeam--my gloom becomes gladness; You sing--from my heart flee the shadows of night." "I--I have written a good deal of poetry during my life, Padre. I will show you some of it, if you wish," Rosendo advanced, encouraged by Josè's approbation. "Decidedly, I would!" returned Josè with animation. "And to think, without instruction, without training! What a lesson!" "Yes, Padre, when I think of the blessed Virgin or the little Carmen, my thoughts seem to come in poetry." He stooped over the girl and kissed her. The child reached up and clasped her arms about his black neck. "Padre Rosendo," she said sweetly, "you are a poem, a big one, a beautiful one." "Aye," seconded Josè, and there was a hitch in his voice, "you are an epic--and the world is the poorer that it cannot read you!"