Page 47 - ramona-text

RAMONA 39
he will not be pleased if you ask troublesome questions.
Don't ever speak to me again about this. When the proper
time comes I will tell you myself."
This was when Ramon a was ten. She was now nineteen.
She had never again asked the Senora a question bearing
on the forbidden subject. She had been a good child and said
her prayers, and Father Salvierderra had been always pleased
with her, growing more and more deeply attached to her
year by year. But the proper time had not yet come for the
Senora to tell her anything more about her father and
mother. There were few mornings on which the girl did not
think, "Perhaps it may be to-day that she will tell me."
But she would not ask. Every word of that conversation
was as vivid in her mind as it had been the day it occurred;
and it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that during
every day of the whole nine years had deepened in her heart
the conviction which had prompted the child's question, "Did
he know that you did not want any daughter?"
A nature less gentle than Ramona's would have been em-
bittered, or at least hardened, by this consciousness. But
Ramona's was not. She never put it in words to herself. She
accepted it, as those born deformed seem sometimes to ac-
cept the pain and isolation caused by their deformity, with
an unquestioning acceptance, which is as far above resigna-
tion, as resignation is above rebellious repining.
No one would have known, from Ramona's face, manner,
or habitual conduct, that she had ever experienced a sorrow
or had a care. Her face was sunny, she had a joyous voice,
and never was seen to pass a human being without a cheer-
ful greeting, to highest and lowest the sam.e. Her industry
was tireless. She had had two years at school, in the Convent
of the Sacred Heart at Los Angeles, where the Senora had
placed her at much personal sacrifice, during one of the hard-
est times the Moreno estate had ever seen. Here she had won
the affection of all the Sisters, who spoke of her habitually as
the "blessed child." They had taught her all the dainty arts
of lace-weaving, embroidery, and simple fashions of painting
and drawing, which they, knew; not overmuch learning out
of books, but enough to make her a Dassionate lover of verse