第58章 XI(4)

"Do you see this paper, Senorita Ramona?" she asked, holding it up. Ramona bowed her head. "This was written by my sister, the Senora Ortegna, who adopted you and gave you her name. These were her final instructions to me, in regard to the disposition to be made of the property she left to you."

Ramona's lips parted. She leaned forward, breathless, listening, while the Senora read sentence after sentence. All the pent-up pain, wonder, fear of her childhood and her girlhood, as to the mystery of her birth, swept over her anew, now. Like one hearkening for life or death, she listened. She forgot Alessandro.

She did not look at the jewels. Her eyes never left the Senora's face. At the close of the reading, the Senora said sternly, "You see, now, that my sister left to me the entire disposition of everything belonging to you,"

"But it hasn't said who was my mother," cried Ramona. "Is that all there is in the paper?"

The Senora looked stupefied. Was the girl feigning? Did she care nothing that all these jewels, almost a little fortune, were to be lost to her forever?

"Who was your mother?" she exclaimed, scornfully, "There was no need to write that down. Your mother was an Indian. Everybody knew that!"

At the word "Indian," Ramona gave a low cry.

The Senora misunderstood it. "Ay," she said, "a low, common Indian. I told my sister, when she took you, the Indian blood in your veins would show some day; and now it has come true."

Ramona's cheeks were scarlet. Her eyes flashed. "Yes, Senora Moreno," she said, springing to her feet; "the Indian blood in my veins shows to-day. I understand many things I never understood before. Was it because I was an Indian that you have always hated me?"

"You are not an Indian, and I have never hated you," interrupted the Senora.

Ramona heeded her not, but went on, more and more. impetuously. "And if I am an Indian, why do you object to my marrying Alessandro? Oh, I am glad I am an Indian! I am of his people. He will be glad!" The words poured like a torrent out of her lips. In her excitement she came closer and closer to the Senora. "You are a cruel woman," she said. "I did not know it before; but now I do. If you knew I was an Indian, you had no reason to treat me so shamefully as you did last night, when you saw me with Alessandro. You have always hated me. Is my mother alive'? Where does she live? Tell me; and I will go to her to-day.

Tell me! She will be glad that Alessandro loves me!"

It was a cruel look, indeed, and a crueller tone, with which the Senora answered: "I have not the least idea who your mother was, or if she is still alive, Nobody ever knew anything about her,--some low, vicious creature, that your father married when he was out of his senses, as you are now, when you talk of marrying Alessandro!"

"He married her, then?" asked Ramona, with emphasis. "How know you that, Senora Moreno?"

"He told my sister so," replied the Senora, reluctantly. She grudged the girl even this much of consolation.

"What was his name?" asked Ramona.

"Phail; Angus Phail," the Senora replied almost mechanically. She found herself strangely constrained by Ramona's imperious earnestness, and she chafed under it. The tables were being turned on her, she hardly knew how. Ramona seemed to tower in stature, and to have the bearing of the one in authority, as she stood before her pouring out passionate question after question. The Senora turned to the larger box, and opened it. With unsteady hands she lifted out the garments which for so many years had rarely seen the light. Shawls and ribosos of damask, laces, gowns of satin, of velvet. As the Senora flung one after another on the chairs, it was a glittering pile of shining, costly stuffs. Ramona's eyes rested on them dreamily.

"Did my adopted mother wear all these?" she asked, lifting in her hand a fold of lace, and holding it up to the light, in evident admiration.

Again the Senora misconceived her. The girl seemed not insensible to the value and beauty of this costly raiment. Perhaps she would be lured by it.

"All these are yours, Ramona, you understand, on your wedding day, if you marry worthily, with my permission," said the Senora, in a voice a shade less cold than had hitherto come from her lips.

"Did you understand what I read you?"