This is what occurred: the two young people, instead of trying to resist the new feeling which was germinating in their hearts and growing so rapidly, yielded to it with that simple confidence which ignorance alone can give, and which converts love into a divine sentiment. Long before they had made a mutual avowal, they understood each other by a glance, and knew that they were henceforth attached to each other.
One day Doña Diana approached Melchior, who, with his shoulder leant against a sumach, was listlessly watching a flight of wild pigeons passing over his head. The young man was so absorbed in thought that he did not hear the maiden's light step, as her dainty feet made the sand of the walk she was following creak. It was only when her hand was laid on his shoulder that, recalled to earth from heaven, he started as if he had received an electric shock, turned suddenly, and fixed his eyes on Doña Diana. The young lady smiled.
"Were you dreaming?" she asked.
"Yes," he replied with a sigh; "I was dreaming, Niña."
She mechanically raised her eyes to the sky.
"Of those birds, doubtless? Did they bring you a hope or a regret?"
Melchior shook his head.
"Neither one nor the other," he said sorrowfully. "I have no regrets, and my sole hope is here."
The young lady looked down with a blush. There was a silence for some minutes, filled with ineffable melody for these young hearts; the lad was the first to speak.
"Alas!" he said, in a low and timid voice, "Regrets are hot made for me; what am I, save a lost child, whose colour is not even decided? Can I regret a family I do not know?"