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The moment Edward appeared Felipa rolled herself up like a hedgehog again and refused to speak. But the old grandmother knelt down and drew the little crouching figure into her arms with gentle tenderness, smoothing its hair and murmuring loving words in her soft dialect.
"WE don't," the girl replied with emphasis; "there's a shorter cut." "Where?" "That's telling," she answered shortly. "What's your name?" asked Lance, after a steep scramble and a drop into the ravine. "Flip." "What?" "Flip." "I mean your first name, your front name." "Flip." "Flip! Oh, short for Felipa!" "It ain't Flipper, it's Flip." And she relapsed into silence.
Then I carried my bundle back satisfied. The next day Felipa and I in secret began our labors: hers consisted in worrying me out of my life and spoiling material mine in keeping my temper and trying to sew. The result, however, was satisfactory, never mind how we got there. I led Christine out one afternoon: Edward followed. "Do you like tableaux?" I said. "There is one I have arranged for you."
"I see an ugly little girl: that is all." The next day the boat returned, and brought back five persons the old grandfather, Felipa, Drollo, Miguel of the island and Edward Bowne. "Already?" I said. "Tired of the Madre, Kitty: thought I would come up here and see you for a while. I knew you must be pining for me." "Certainly," I replied: "do you not see how I have wasted away?"
And so when I hope it is hope, and not that well-dried, monotonous cheerfulness which makes one long to throw the persistent smilers out of the window. Felipa danced no more on the barrens; her illness had toned her excitable nature; she seemed content to sit at our feet while we talked, looking up dreamily into our faces, but no longer eagerly endeavoring to comprehend.
Which was not true, in my case at least, since Felipa had openly derided my small strength when I lifted her, and beat off the sponge with which I attempted to bathe her hot face. "They" used no sponges, she said, only their nice cool hands; and she wished "they" would come and take care of her again. But Christine had resigned in toto.
Aunt Viney, who entertained Donna Maria, was nevertheless watchful of the others; but failed to detect in Dick's effusive greeting, or the Dona's coquettish smile of recognition, any suggestion of previous confidences. It was rather to Cecily that Dona Felipa seemed to be characteristically exuberant and childishly feminine.
She carried Felipa to her own room for we each had a little cell opening out of the main apartment and as white-robed Charity she shone with new radiance. "Shone" is the proper word, for through the open door of the dim cell, with the dark little face of Felipa on her shoulder, her white robe and skin seemed fairly to shine, as white lilies shine on a dark night.
Starvation and exposure had nearly finished them; four, in fact, died within a day or two; but the Spanish pilot, the one who had kept his strength long enough to steer toward Madeira, lived longer. The kind-hearted Christopher, who was devoured with curiosity, had had the poor fellow carried to his own home. He and Felipa did all they could for him, but their nursing could not restore him.
"He does not tease me," she said angrily in Spanish; "and, besides, what if he does? I like it." She looked at me with gleaming eyes and stamped her foot. "What a little tempest!" said Christine. Then Edward, man-like, began to explain. "You could not look much like this lady, Felipa," he said, "because you are so dark, you know." "Am I dark?"
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