They were ready for Easter. They filled a place among the glittering decorations of the high altar in the Church of Santa Clara. But ere the Easter bells began to ring, the gentle Inca girl had closed her eyes upon a world she was little loath to leave. Every rite of the creed she professed had been duly afforded her. She confessed, communicated, and had extreme unction with all the proper forms, but with a very misty and imperfect apprehension of what was being done for her. If these things cannot help, neither may they hinder, the soul that trusts in God’s mercy through Christ. As the dew ascends from earth to heaven, unbidden, uncontrolled by man, so poor Sumac’s simple prayer ascended straight to the throne of God—“Good Lord Christ, take me to Thyself.” Old Yupanqui, who hid a broken heart beneath a coldly impassive exterior, could not refuse his beloved grand-daughter’s last request—that he would receive Christian baptism. Accordingly he submitted to the rite on Whitsunday—though with little comprehension of its significance. “I will do what she wished,” he said to Viracocha. “And after all, if I were now to go and dwell with my fathers in the Mansions of the Sun, they might not know me, or they might look upon me with scorn, because we are not what we were, in the old days when they ruled the land.” “At least, my father,” Viracocha answered, “you cannot doubt it would be well for all of us to follow whither she is gone.” XIX. The Star Shines. “From the beautiful face of my love, They call her Coyllur. It was by reason of her beauty A harmonious name. Like the moon in its splendour Is her bright forehead, When it shines in brilliancy In the highest heaven.” _From “Ollantā,” an Ancient Inca Drama._ Coyllur’s grief for her sister was poignant. The girls were tenderly attached to each other, and had never since infancy been separated for a single day. Sumac’s sorrow bound them only more closely together; and during her long illness Coyllur had waited on her with the most assiduous affection. She was in consequence little able to bear the severe fasts and strict seclusion which the Peruvian customs imposed upon mourners; and erelong old Yupanqui began to look with keen apprehension on her drooping form—dreading, not without reason, lest the last joy and solace of his declining years should be taken from him. Viracocha’s alarm was not less than his. Both welcomed the gentle authority with which Doña Beatriz Coya insisted on removing her niece to her own more cheerful dwelling. For the Inca buildings, admirable as they were for “simplicity, symmetry, solidity,”[42] and wonderfully fitted to resist the ravages of time and the shocks of earthquakes, were rather dull places of abode for ladies.