Part 6 (2/2)

”Yes, that is lots worse,” said Rea.

”How do you know, pet?” laughingly said her uncle. ”Did you ever try it?”

”I've tried to try it,” said Rea, ”and it felt so much worse, I couldn't.”

It was not easy at first to make old Ysidro understand what Mr. Connor meant. He could not believe that anybody would give him a house and home for nothing. He thought Mr. Connor wanted to get him to come and work; and, being an honest old fellow, he was afraid Mr. Connor did not know how little strength he had; so he said,--

”Senor Connor, I am very old; I am sick too. I am not worth hiring to work.”

”Bless you!” said Mr. Connor. ”I don't want you to work any more than you do now. I am only offering you a place to live in. If you are strong enough to do a day's work, now and then, I shall pay you for it, just as I would pay anybody else.”

Ysidro gazed earnestly in Mr. Connor's face, while he said this; he gazed as if he were trying to read his very thoughts. Then he looked up to the sky, and he said,--

”Senor, Ysidro has no words. He cannot speak. Will you come into the house and tell Carmena? She will not believe if I tell it.”

So Mr. Connor and Rea went into the house, and there sat Carmena in bed, trying to sew; but the tears were running out of her eyes. When she saw Mr. Connor and Rea coming in at the door, she threw up her hands and burst out into loud crying.

”O senor! senor!” she said. ”They drive us out of our house. Can you help us? Can you speak for us to the wicked man?”

Ysidro went up to the bed and took hold of her hand, and, pointing with his other hand to Mr. Connor, said,--

”He comes from G.o.d,--the senor. He will help us!”

”Can we stay?” cried Carmena.

Here Rea began to cry.

”Don't cry, Rea,” said Mr. Connor. ”That will make her feel worse.”

Rea gulped down her sobs, enough to say,--

”But she doesn't want to come into the canon! All she wants is to stay here! She won't be glad of the new house.”

”Yes, she will, by and by,” whispered Mr. Connor. ”Stop crying, that's my good Rea.”

But Rea could not. She stood close to the bed, looking into old Carmena's distressed face; and the tears would come, spite of all her efforts.

When Carmena finally understood that not even Mr. Connor, with all his good will and all his money, could save them from leaving their home, she cried again as hard as at first; and Ysidro felt ashamed of her, for he was afraid Mr. Connor would think her ungrateful. But Mr. Connor understood it very well.

”I have lived only two years in my house,” he said to Rea, ”and I would not change it for one twice as good that anybody could offer me. Think how any one must feel about a house he has lived in all his life.”

”But it is a horrible little house, Uncle George,” said Rea,--”the dirtiest hovel I ever saw. It is worse than they are in Italy.”

”I do not believe that makes much difference, dear,” said Uncle George.

”It is their home, all the same, as if it were large and nice. It is that one loves.”

Just as Mr. Connor and Rea came out of the house, who should come riding by, but the very man that had caused all this unhappiness,--the lawyer who had taken Ysidro's land! He was with the man to whom he had sold it.

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