Ambrosia Lonzello, the Friar's Daughter, stood at the gate in front of her mother's home, gazing down the street, dreaming the dreams of oriental maidenhood. She had inherited the symmetry of proportion that belonged to her mother's tribe in Cebu, and from her father, Bishop Lonzello, had the Spaniard's dark eyes and charming vivacity. It had been twenty years since Friar Lonzello, a young priest then located in Cebu, had met the young native woman who became Ambrosia's mother; and though it was forbidden priests to marry, Lonzello yet supported the woman he had then loved and the daughter that had been born to them. If it was a strange thing to a European, it was rather the rule than the exception in that oriental, mediaeval country, and as the daughter of the Bishop, Ambrosia was one of the prominent young women of the walled city. She stood, gazing down the street and up at the stars, dreaming her own dreams, a girl without experience in the ways of the world, when she heard a voice at her side: "Ambrosia! Buenos dias!" [1] Ambrosia started. She knew the voice. But she supposed the possessor, Camillo Saguanaldo, was across the bay in China. A few months before he had been banished because of leading an insurrection against the friars, who were practically the rulers of the Philippines, and his return involved great danger for him. So Ambrosia said: "I thought you were in China, Camillo. Do you not know it is dangerous for you to be in Luzon?" "My duty calls me here, Ambrosia, and here I must be," replied the youth. "It is not so dangerous now as it has been in the past. At last our prayers are to be answered and America, the great land that loves liberty, is to give us a chance to secure our freedom. If we do our part we shall be free. When I was in China I talked with Admiral Rainey, of the American fleet that was anchored there, and he told me that the United States was about to go to war with Spain solely to secure liberty for the Cubans; and when I told him how it was in the Philippines, that we had been struggling for liberty for three hundred years, he said that it might be that Uncle Sam would do for us what he meant to do for the reconcentrados of Cuba. So I came over in advance to help when the only chance the Filipinos ever had shall come to them." "I wish it might be, Camillo," replied the girl. "But if my father hears you have returned, he will kill you, and nothing can appease his wrath now." It might be mentioned that when the insurrection led by Saguanaldo had failed and his banishment was decreed, Bishop Lonzello, at the intercession of Ambrosia, had procured for him an allowance of $20,000 on which to live in China. Ambrosia had intended it as a kindness to him, and the bishop regarded it as a bribe, but now that he had returned there was no doubt that Lonzello would prosecute him and if possible secure his death.