As the Doña Maria spoke, Mariposilla entered the room, bearing a little cross of white roses. She laid it timidly upon the breast of her grandmother; then, frightened and hysterical, she fled from the bed. "Poor child," said the Doña Maria, "she fears death greatly. She thinks only of the fire that must at first purify the soul, not of the joys of eternity. "Go now, Señora, retire at once for the night. You are weary and in need of rest. "I care not for company. I will remain alone with my mother and our blessed Lady. I desire to entreat that the sufferings of the dear one may be short. "Surely the dear Lord will have mercy upon the aged one who has already endured so much upon earth." "Good Doña Maria," I plead, "you will surely be ill if you kneel all night in prayer. To-morrow will be a sad, hard day, and without rest you will be unfit for its strain." "No, Señora," she replied firmly; "I shall not be ill. After midnight I shall sleep; until then I shall pray." I saw that my persuasions were in vain, and left her alone with her dead. As I passed through the living-room to reach my own, I was startled by a white-robed figure in front of the Virgin's picture. The full July moon, streaming through the open door, discovered touchingly the hopeless misery of Mariposilla. She was in her nightgown, gazing piteously into the illuminated face of the unsympathetic doll above the chimney shelf. As I approached her, she turned sadly from the picture. In the moonlight, I saw great tears shining in her eyes. "She loves me not; she is angry and smiles no more," she said, despairingly. The child's lovely face expressed so perfectly the agony of desertion that I felt powerless to comfort her. Her firm belief in the Virgin's displeasure had torn from her heart its last hope. For weeks she believed that the little mother would have mercy, would intercede for her, and restore in some miraculous way her lover; but to-night the Virgin would not smile. She refused to pity her sorrowful child. "Dear Mariposilla," I said, remembering the tactics that I sometimes employed with Marjorie; "you must not think because the Virgin refuses to smile that she is angry. "We ourselves cannot smile. We are sad and awed by the presence of death, and surely it would be heartless for 'our Lady' to smile, when those who love and trust her are in trouble. "You are nervous and weary. You shall room with me to-night. I have already prepared you a nice bed upon my couch." I drew her gently in the direction of my room, persuaded that I had quieted for a time her moody fears. "No! no!" she cried, bursting away from me; "I can not sleep. I will never sleep again." She rushed, passionately, through the open door into the moonlight. In her bare feet, clad only in her flowing nightgown, she stood like a spirit among the dark vines and lacy shadows of the old veranda. Her hair fell about her shoulders like a tragic veil, while a sudden agony touched her young, white face.