"Never fear. Tell me what's on your mind, Catalina."
"Well, it's this, father dear. God has spoken to me and I have answered
Him."
"How has He spoken to thee?" said my father, and there was no sternness in his look either.
Catalina pointed furtively at Paula.
"And how hast thou answered Him?"
"I've asked Him that He might save me and that He might make me a real
Christian."
There was a strange look in my poor father's face as he answered quietly, "If I could believe that there was a God, I would say that He had heard thee."
Catalina wrote a long letter to grandmother, the contents of which she did not care to show us. So it was as Catalina wished, and Maria promised to take good care of the invalid.
At last the great day arrived. Paula and I, up at sunrise, scurried to the window to look at the weather, and oh joy! It was a magnificent day without a cloud in the sky! A little later when Teresa arrived to call us, great was her surprise to find us all ready to start.
"What a wonderful thing," she remarked dryly, "you'd never be late to school if you did this every morning."