"You should not submit to her caprices so readily," I said the next day while strolling on the barren with Edward. (He was not so much cast down, however, as he might have been.) "I adore the very ground her foot touches, Kitty." "I know it. But how will it end?" "I will tell you: some of these days I shall win her, and then--she will adore me." Here Felipa came running after us, and Edward immediately challenged her to a race: a game of romps began. If Christine had been looking from her window, she might have thought he was not especially disconsolate over her absence; but she was not looking. She was never looking out of anything or for anybody. She was always serenely content where she was. Edward and Felipa strayed off among the pine trees, and gradually I lost sight of them. But as I sat sketching an hour afterward Edward came into view, carrying the child in his arms. I hurried to meet them. "I shall never forgive myself," he said: "the little thing has fallen and injured her foot badly, I fear." "I do not care at all," said Felipa: "I like to have it hurt. It is _my_ foot, isn't it?" These remarks she threw at me defiantly, as though I had laid claim to the member in question. I could not help laughing. "The other lady will not laugh," said the child proudly. And in truth Christine, most unexpectedly, took up the rôle of nurse. She carried Felipa to her own room--for we each had a little cell opening out of the main apartment--and as white-robed Charity she shone with new radiance. "Shone" is the proper word, for through the open door of the dim cell, with the dark little face of Felipa on her shoulder, her white robe and skin seemed fairly to shine, as white lilies shine on a dark night. The old grandmother left the child in our care and watched our proceedings wistfully, very much as a dog watches the human hands that extract the thorn from the swollen foot of her puppy. She was grateful and asked no questions; in fact, thought was not one of her mental processes. She did not think much: she only felt. As for Felipa, the child lived in rapture during those days in spite of her suffering. She scarcely slept at all--she was too happy: I heard her voice rippling on through the night, and Christine's low replies. She adored her beautiful nurse. The fourth day came: Edward Bowne walked into the cell. "Go out and breathe the fresh air for an hour or two," he said in the tone more of a command than a request. "But the child will never consent," replied Christine sweetly. "Oh yes, she will: I will stay with her," said the young man, lifting the feverish little head on his arm and passing his hand softly over the bright eyes. "Felipa, do you not want me?" said Christine, bending down. "He stays: it is all the same," murmured the child. "So it is. Go, Christine," said Edward with a little smile of triumph.