It stirred in her own heart. She stood still a moment to feel
consciously the glow and the enlargement. Then with an
impulse natural, but neither analyzed nor understood, she
lifted her prayer-book, and began to recite "the rising
prayer." She had not said to herself, "from the love of
Freedom to the love of God, it is but a step," but she
experienced the emotion and felt all the joy of an adoration,
simple and unquestioned, springing as naturally from the soul
as the wild flower from the prairie.

As she knelt, up rose the sun, and flooded her white figure
and her fair unbound hair with the radiance of the early
morning. The matin bells chimed from the convent and the
churches, and the singing birds began to flutter their bright
wings, and praise God also, "in their Latin."

She took her breakfast alone. The Senora never came
downstairs so early. Isabel had wavering inclinations, and
generally followed them. Sometimes, even her father had his
cup of strong coffee alone in his study; so the first meal of
the day was usually, as perhaps it ought to be, a selfishly-
silent one. "Too much enthusiasm and chattering at breakfast,
are like too much red at sunrise," the doctor always said; "a
dull, bad day follows it"--and Antonia's observation had
turned the little maxim into a superstition.

In the Senora's room, the precept was either denied, or
defied. Antonia heard the laughter and conversation through
the closed door, and easily divined the subject of it. It