"No, dear," I entreated, "no one will compel you to marry Arturo. Believe me, you shall do as you please, only you must not allow unjust suspicions to make you miserable. Think no more for the present of marriage, try only to learn things that will fit you for life and happiness; after a time, if one should come whom you love, you can then not only make him joyful with your great beauty, but he will love and respect you, because you have acquired the knowledge that makes life agreeable and comfortable long after youth and beauty have flown."
"The señora is most wise," the child assented calmly. "Perhaps she will teach me a little from her books, that I, too, may learn of the great world; for, indeed, I will be good," she cried, brightening with the determination.
"Yes, Mariposilla," I replied; "each day you shall have a lesson in English, and soon you will be able to enjoy all that I enjoy; only in return you must teach me Spanish, that I may also understand the language and literature of your famous race."
Thus the compact was sealed, and each day afterward found Mariposilla seated quietly in my room, poring over an allotted task. Her stormy passions seemed stilled. If the wind of destiny sometimes shrieked in my watchful ears, it more frequently sighed plaintively as I devised new educational schemes for my protégée.
No one was more delighted over Mariposilla's apparent reformation than the Doña Maria.
Not only did the lessons progress with astonishing regularity, but work on the altar cloth, which had been for long intervals neglected so that its various stages of completion were easily detected in the several soiled sections of the linen, was resumed with steady, plodding determination. Now but one row of the little Jesus stitch remained to be done in the beautiful cloth ordered months before by a wealthy devotee.
The Doña Maria was in ecstasies when her daughter brought the task finished, two days before Christmas; at the same time begging permission to ride to Pasadena that she might receive for her labor the great sum of thirty dollars.
That same morning, when Mariposilla was pressing carefully the handsome piece of linen, Father Ramirez had looked into the kitchen and praised her industry.
"After all, she is a dear child," the old priest said, patting the dark head. "She will yet make a true woman like her dear mother. Before long Arturo will come, and the bells of Old San Gabriel shall ring again as they rang for the Doña Maria long ago."