"Never to dance! Never to hear a serenade! Never to watch on moonlight nights for a handsome caballero!"
"I would as soon live in a tomb," confessed Dolores.
"But if you had never seen a dance, would you miss dancing? My mother's people were priests; she was to have been a nun. My blood and my teaching have been of the church. My life has been lived in one little narrow strip of the world. All at once the world changed. Sometimes it bewilders me, this change. You say 'happy,' but I don't think I know that word as you know it. Maybe I never shall learn it—who knows? But I can find work for the Church even here in the world, and you will all be my good friends, and—I shall be content."
Doña Luisa had entered the room while she was speaking, and nodded her approval.
"Content? You will be happy, my child; you will be with Rafael! Have you seen the chest of the donas? Is it not handsome? If we only had the key!"
"There is a little silver key on the shrine," said Dolores, and ran to get it.
"Aha! On the shrine of the Virgin!" said Doña Luisa. "Is that not love, Raquelita?"
"I am willing to believe it," she said, and took the little key, only to hand it back to Dolores. "You open it—and may you be the next happy bride!"
Dolores rushed to unlock the chest, and Madalena to lift the lid, and Ana, as well as the older women, exclaimed at the richness of the contents.
"Ai! Raquel Estevan, thou happy one!" cried Ana; "you have more luck than a queen!"