Between the two results, between the two processes, there is just
that difference which is always to be seen between the stroke of
talent and the stroke of genius.

Senora Moreno's was the stroke of genius.

II

THE Senora Moreno's house was one of the best specimens to be
found in California of the representative house of the half barbaric,
half elegant, wholly generous and free-handed life led there by
Mexican men and women of degree in the early part of this
century, under the rule of the Spanish and Mexican viceroys, when
the laws of the Indies were still the law of the land, and its old
name, "New Spain," was an ever-present link and stimulus to the
warmest memories and deepest patriotisms of its people.

It was a picturesque life, with more of sentiment and gayety in it,
more also that was truly dramatic, more romance, than will ever be
seen again on those sunny shores. The aroma of it all lingers there
still; industries and inventions have not yet slain it; it will last out
its century,-- in fact, it can never be quite lost, so long as there is
left standing one such house as the Senora Moreno's.

When the house was built, General Moreno owned all the land
within a radius of forty miles,-- forty miles westward, down the
valley to the sea; forty miles eastward, into the San Fernando
Mountains; and good forty miles more or less along the coast. The
boundaries were not very strictly defined; there was no occasion,
in those happy days, to reckon land by inches. It might be asked,