thing to do. Jist rise up, quiet like, and get a divorce agin Spencer.
Hold on! There ain't a judge or jury in California that wouldn't give it
to you right off the nail, without asking questions. Why, you 'ld get it
by default if you wanted to; you 'ld just have to walk over the course!
And then, Belle," he drew his chair still nearer her, "when you've
settled down again--well!--I don't mind renewing that offer I once made
ye, before Spencer ever came round ye--I don't mind, Belle, I swear I
don't! Honest Injin! I'm in earnest, there's my hand!"

Mrs. Tucker's reply has not been recorded. Enough that half an hour
later Mr. Weaver appeared in the courtyard with traces of tears on his
foolish face, a broken falsetto voice, and other evidence of mental and
moral disturbance. His cordiality and oracular predisposition remained
sufficiently to enable him to suggest the magical words "Blue Grass"
mysteriously to Concha, with an indication of his hand to the erect
figure of her pale mistress in the doorway, who waved to him a silent
but half-compassionate farewell.

At about this time a slight change in her manner was noticed by the few
who saw her more frequently. Her apparently invincible girlishness of
spirit had given way to a certain matronly seriousness. She applied
herself to her household cares and the improvement of the hacienda with
a new sense of duty and a settled earnestness, until by degrees she
wrought into it not only her instinctive delicacy and taste, but part
of her own individuality. Even the rude rancheros and tradesmen who were
permitted to enter the walls in the exercise of their calling began to
speak mysteriously of the beauty of this garden of the almarjal. She
went out but seldom, and then accompanied by the one or the other of her
female servants, in long drives on unfrequented roads. On Sundays she
sometimes drove to the half-ruined mission church of Santa Inez, and