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Rachela faithfully kept her agreement. For one hour she was asleep to all her charge did, and Isabel was in her own room when the precious sixty minutes were over. Happy? So happy that her soul seemed to have pushed her body aside, as a thing not to be taken into account. She sang like a bird for very gladsomeness.
It was indeed hard to weary these three heart-starved women; they asked question after question, and when any brought out the comical side of camp life they forget their pleasure was almost a clandestine one, and laughed outright. In the very midst of such a laugh, Rachela entered the room. She stood in speechless amazement, gazing with a dark, malicious face upon the happy group.
But it brought a compensation. Fray Ignatius did not leave the Mission comforts; and Rachela could not bear to go prowling about the corridors and passages. She established herself in the Senora's room, and remained there. And very early in the evening she said "she had an outrageous headache," and went to her room. Then Antonia and Isabel sat awhile by their mother's bed.
Her rebellious grief filled every corner of her heart. She understood that some one had entered the room, and she thought of Rachela; but she found a kind of comfort in the dull stupor of grief she was indulging, and she would not break its spell by lifting her head. "Maria." She rose up quickly and stood gazing at him. She did not shriek or exclaim; her surprise controlled her.
She heard the murmur of voices downstairs, and she thought angrily of Rachela, and Molly, and Manuel, "making a little confidence together" over their trouble, and spicing their evening gossip with the strange thing that had happened to the Senor Doctor. She knew that Rachela and Manuel would call him heretic and Americano, and, by authority of these two words, accuse him of every crime.
Among the Mexican families loyal to Santa Anna the dismission of the priest and the duenna had been a source of much indignant gossip; for Rachela was one of those women who cry out when they are hurt, and compel others to share their trouble. The priest had not therefore found it necessary to explain WHY the Senora had called upon a new confessor.
She lingered with him and Antonia, listening with vague comprehension to their conversation, until Rachela called her angrily; and as she was not brave enough for a second rebellion that night, she obediently answered her summons. An hour afterwards, Antonia stepped cautiously within her room. She was sleeping, and smiling in her sleep. Where was her loving, innocent soul wandering?
It was impossible after this interruption to recall the happy spirit dismissed by it; and Rachela had the consolation, as she muttered beside the fire in the Senora's room, this conviction. So that when she heard the party breaking up half an hour afterwards, she complimented herself upon her influence.
"Are you totally and forever wicked, disobedient one? Two hours I have been kept waiting. Very well! The Sisters are the only duenna for you; and back to the convent you shall go to-morrow. The Senora is of my mind, also." "My father will not permit it. I will go to my father. And think of this, Rachela: I am no longer to be treated like a baby."
You are not to leave the garden, however, and for one hour's walk only, Senorita; certainly there is time for no more." "I will take care of Isabel; no harm shall come to her. You may keep your eyes shut for one hour, Rachela, and you may shut your ears also, and put your feet on the couch and let them rest. I will watch Isabel carefully, be sure of that."
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