“Oh, hush, mother! what use is all that? Indeed, I never heeded such words when they spoke them; and I think there is much talk like the mountain snow, that melts when you take it in your hand. But, mother, you know I saw him. Once he laid aside the llautu, and the crimson tunic, and the white wing-feathers of the cora-quenque, and he put on the dress of a poor man, and came unknown to Cuzco, that he might look upon the city of his fathers;—that he might look too upon this poor face of mine, that has no beauty now. And then he said—he said—No, mamallay, I will not tell what he said—not even to you. Those words are all my own; they are the one thing poor Sumac has in this dark, cold world. Had he bidden me then, I would have gone forth gladly to the wild desert with him—for was he not the Inca? But he did not; he told me he would come again. He _did_ come again—you know how. They would not let me see him. Perhaps it was best; my face might have troubled him—might have shadowed with a thought of pain the noble calm of the look he wore, as beseemed him, to the last. It does not matter now—for me. I ought not to weep;—you tell me I may pray for him. And he received Holy Baptism,—most gladly, as they say. Moreover, he left his cause to God;—Christ is God.” After one more gush of passionate tears came a sudden change of tone: “Give _him_—give _his_ memory up for Viracocha! Give the emerald of the mine for one of those green leaves in the garden yonder! Not that Viracocha is not good and brave. I love him well,—as my brother. But there are ten thousand green leaves for one green stone, mother.” “So you think your own portion the best, and would rather keep it, with all its sorrow? Well, my child, I believe you are right,” said the woman’s heart of Sister Maria. “Though, of course, earthly love is nothing, compared with heavenly—mere dust and dross,” the nun interposed. “Still, God knows,” the woman said, taking up the parable again, “it is less bitter to have once been loved, truly and nobly, and then to have been separated by man’s hate and cruelty, than to find the trusted false, and to see what looked like gold fade away into tinsel.” Sumac looked up, with interest and curiosity in her tearful eyes. The old wound ceased to throb, while she wondered whether some similar scar might not be found beneath the serge robe of a holy virgin. “I scarcely know whether I ought to tell you foolish old stories,” said the nun, as the colour mantled to the roots of her thin hair, touched with gray. “Of course, all is past and gone—and no matter now. It seems as if it happened to some different person, long ago, in another life. Yet, not so long, after all. It is not easy in the convent to tell how time passes. I make strange mistakes sometimes. I think I have told you that I was born and brought up in Seville.” “Seville! That is the great city beyond the Mother Sea, like Cuzco here,” said Sumac, who had heard José talk of Seville.