III.
JUAN CANITO and Señor Felipe were not the only members of the Señora's family who were impatient for the sheep-shearing. There was also Ramona. Ramona was, to the world at large, a far more important person than the Señora herself. The Señora was of the past; Ramona was of the present. For one eye that could see the significant, at times solemn, beauty of the Señora's pale and shadowed countenance, there were a hundred that flashed with eager pleasure at the barest glimpse of Ramona's face; the shepherds, the herdsmen, the maids, the babies, the dogs, the poultry, all loved the sight of Ramona; all loved her, except the Señora. The Señora loved her not; never had loved her, never could love her; and yet she had stood in the place of mother to the girl ever since her childhood, and never once during the whole sixteen years of her life had shown her any unkindness in act. She had promised to be a mother to her; and with all the inalienable stanchness of her nature she fulfilled the letter of her promise. More than the bond lay in the bond; but that was not the Señora's fault.
The story of Ramona the Señora never told. To most of the Señora's acquaintances now, Ramona was a mystery. They did not know—and no one ever asked a prying question of the Señora Moreno—who Ramona's parents were, whether they were living or dead, or why Ramona, her name not being Moreno, lived always in the Señora's house as a daughter,
