She remained still. She was in a sore strait. Her
heart held but one impulse, one desire,-- to go with Alessandro;
nothing was apparently farther from his thoughts than this. Could
she offer to go? Should she risk laying a burden on him greater
than he could bear? If he were indeed a beggar, as he said, would
his life be hindered or helped by her? She felt herself strong and
able. Work had no terrors for her; privations she knew nothing of,
but she felt no fear of them.
"Alessandro!" she said, in a tone which startled him.
"My Senorita!" he said tenderly.
"You have never once called me Ramona."
"I cannot, Senorita!" he replied.
"Why not?"
"I do not know. I sometimes think 'Ramona,'" he added faintly;
"but not often. If I think of you by any other name than as my
Senorita, it is usually by a name you never heard."
"What is it?" exclaimed Ramona, wonderingly.
"An Indian word, my dearest one, the name of the bird you are
like,-- the wood-dove. In the Luiseno tongue that is Majel; that was
what I thought my people would have called you, if you had come
to dwell among us.
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