But I do not want to marry her, most excellent sir, I do not want to marry your Maestra, the Señorita Constancia de la Rama y Lacson! O sir, my revered Master, I am all alone, my ancestral father and mother being for a few weeks at our other hacienda, and I implore you to save me from this my desperate state. Come to me, oh please, and drive the she-wolf from my door, and you shall ever receive a gentle rain of unspeakable gratitude from The Sore Heart of Your humble Pupil And Beseecher MAURO LEDESMA Y GOLES. P.S. Viva America in Philippines! Viva Philippines in America! M. L. y G. "Go to school, Isidro," said the Maestro, when he was through, in a voice so weak that the boy looked up quickly, wondering whether everyone was ill that fine, fragrant morning. "Tell Señor Abada to take charge till I come." The Maestro felt the necessity of some deep, careful thinking. For certainly, of all the difficulties which, in his two years' career, he had alertly fought and conquered, none had ever confronted him of nature so delicate. II It's always when you think that you have at last mastered the problem of this life and evolved a system that promises smooth going the rest of the way that the skies tumble down upon you. Thus it was with the Maestro. Just when he had brought the school system of his pueblo to the point where, he fondly dreamed, he could sit back and watch it run along the nickel-plated tracks that he had so carefully laid, there came the washout and the promise of wreck. The blow was a hard one, and for a while, very much in contradiction to his custom, the Maestro buried himself in thought of past achievements and his heart softened toward himself in a great burst of self-compassion. He thought of the fight, the long, bitter, patient fight, he had had to find a Maestra and get his girls' school started. The hunt for a Maestra, what an Iliad, and what an Odyssey! First the careful canvas of the pueblo, the horror of the chosen at the thought of degrading themselves to the point of teaching in a public school, the rebuffs of parents, the tearful indignation of mothers; then, the pueblo proving impossible, the long rides into the surrounding country, to far haciendas, in search of the longed-for Being! Once he had crossed the swollen Ilog, and had been nearly drowned with his horse, to find the fair one of whom he had heard glowing reports--she was very well educated, si Señor, had been to collegio in Manila for four years, yes, four years; and she could play the piano, ah, divinely, and she could sew and weave jusi, just like the mother of God--to find this marvel deaf, deaf as a post! And then, suddenly, he had met Her!