"See how the violets are covered with blue, and the honeysuckle has just reached the farthest end of the porch. Oh, Nora, how can any one be unhappy with flowers to tend, and a home to keep?"
"Ah! yes. You are right, sister; but it is your home—not mine."
Anna laid her arm around her as though to support her. She knew her sister's proud spirit and yearning heart, and she only whispered, as she had so often done, "Be patient, poor child; be still."
But that short, passionate plaint had lightened Nora's heart; after a week's sunshine the roads were dry enough to ride out once more with Don Pedro's sons, and when steady rain set in once more after that, she tried to show her sister that she could take an interest in "home"—though it was not her own.
A month had worn away, and as long as the weather permitted the regular running of the mails, Pablo and Roberto brought greetings from their father once a week; but when the roads grew impassable, they too were left without news. Not an iota did they fail of their attention to Nora, however; whatever dainties the ranch afforded were still laid at her feet, or rather on her sister's kitchen table; and the roads were never so bad but that they paid their respects at least twice a week.
"You have no cause to complain," said Sister Anna.
"No," replied Nora, with a yawn; "but I wish the Don would come back."
And he did come back.
"I am so glad you have come," she said, frankly, meeting him on the threshold.