"Well, I'm sure 'what's inside the shawl' would like very much to get away out of this prison; and so, sir, when you find a way, you must let her know. But won't Mr. Russell wake and miss you?" "Mr. Russell? Why, he isn't with me any longer." "Isn't he?" "No. I'm all alone. They took him away, and I suppose he's alone too." "Oh dear! I hope I sha'n't be left alone." "I hope, if you are, you may be left here." "Why?" asked Katie, who knew perfectly well, but liked to hear it stated in plain words. "Why--because I could come to see you all the time then, instead of waiting till they're all asleep." CHAPTER XIX. IN WHICH DOLORES INDULGES IN SOME REMINISCENCES OF THE PAST. The sleeper to whose sighs Harry had listened was Mrs. Russell, who awaked on the following morning burdened with the memories of unpleasant dreams. Dolores was bright and cheerful. Katie was as gay and as sunny as ever--perhaps a trifle more so. "I don't understand how it is," said Mrs. Russell, "that you two can keep up your spirits so in this ogre's castle. I'm certain that something dreadful 's going to happen." "Oh, auntie, you shouldn't be always looking on the dark side of things." "I should like to know what other side there is to look on except the dark one. For my part, I think it best always to prepare for the worst; for then when it comes one isn't so utterly overwhelmed." "Yes," said Katie, "but suppose it doesn't come? Why, then, don't you see, auntie, you will have had all your worry for nothing?" "Oh, it's all very well for one like you. You are like a kitten, and turn everything to mirth and play." "Well, here is our dear, darling Dolores," said Katie, who by this time had become great friends with the dark-eyed Spanish beauty. "Look at her! She doesn't mope." "Oh no, I doesn't what you call--mopes," said Dolores, in her pretty broken English. "I see no causa to mopes." "But you're a prisoner as much as I am." "Oh si--but thees is a land that I have a quaintance with: I know thees land--thees art." "Have you ever been here before?" "Si--yes. I lif here once when a child." "Oh, you lived here," said Katie. "Well, now, do you know, I call that awfully funny." "My padre--he lif here in thees castello. I lif here one time--one anno--one year, in thees castello." "What! here in this castle?" "Yes, here. The padre--he had grand flocks of the merino sheeps--to cultivate--to feed them in the pasturas--the sheep--one--ten--twenty thousand--the sheep. And he had thousand men shepherds--and he lif here in thees castello to see over the flocks. But he was away among the flocks alia the times. And me, and the madre, and the domesticos, we all did lif here, and it seems to me like homes." "But that must have been long ago?" "Oh, long, long ago. I was vara leetl--a child; and it was long ago. Then the padre went to Cuba." "Cuba! What! have you been there?" "Oh, many, many years." "Across the Atlantic--far away in Cuba?"