to-day, while I was sorting some herbs, the hen and her brood began to
act mysteriously, to tumble about as Victor might, after too much wine.
All at once I saw the cause, Madre Moreno had bewitched them, and in
three minutes I had cut all their throats and have given the wicked
woman a lesson."

"Catalina! Catalina!" I cried, "how can you be so cruel and
superstitious?" Her face lighted up with supreme contempt for me, but
she said nothing more. On the ground about her were bits of leaves which
I recognized as nightshade and henbane, which could well account for the
actions of the late hen and ducklings.

"What are these?" I asked.

"Little Pablo brought them for dinner; he thought they were mustard, but
they were not, so I threw them away."

"Poor ducks and poor Catalina," was all that I could say, and went
laughing into the house, while she muttered to herself about the
ignorance of the new generation.

My home was, and is a beautiful one, low and long, with all the rooms
opening on the broad veranda; it is part of adobe and part of wood, the
sides being covered with a network of fuchsia, heliotrope and jasmine
reaching to the eaves of the brown tile roof; a broad, branching fig
tree is in the little court before it, and a clump of yuccas and fan
palms to the right, while down to the road and along the front stretches
a broken hedge of Castilian roses, which we Californians love as the
gift of old Spain, our first good nurse, we must always have a nurse it
seems, England, Spain, Mexico and our present, very dry one--but let us