immediate cause of her lover's death, at Santa Barbara, where she was
living with the De la Guerra family, Jan. 24, 1842, after her return
from Lower California, following the death of her parents. "Though Dona
Concepcion," wrote Sir George Simpson, in 1847, "apparently loved to
dwell on the story of her blighted affections, yet, strange to say, she
knew not, till we mentioned it to her, the immediate cause of the
chancellor's sudden death. This circumstance might in some measure be
explained by the fact that Langsdorff's work was not published before
1814; but even then, in any other country than California, a lady who
was still young, would surely have seen a book, which, besides detailing
the grand incident of her life, presented so gratifying a portrait of
her charms." (An Overland journey Round the World, during the years 1841
and 1842, by Sir George Simpson, Governor-in-chief of the Hudson Bay
Company's Territories, published by Lea and Blanchard, Philadelphia, in
1847, page 207.)

[17] She did not actually receive the white habit till she was received
into the Dominican sisterhood, April 11, 1851, by Padre F. Sadoc
Vilarrasa, in the Convent of Santa Catalina de Sena (St. Catherine of
Siena), at Monterey, being the first one to enter, where she took the
perpetual vow April 13, 1852 (Original Records, Book of Clothings and
Professions, page 1, now at Dominican College, at San Rafael, Cal.), and
where she remained continuously till the convent was transferred to
Benicia, Aug. 26, 1854. There being no religious order for women in
California until the Dominican sisterhood was founded at Monterey, March
13, 1851 (Original Annals, at Benicia, Reg. 1, pages I and 14), she had
at first to content herself with joining the Third Order of St. Francis
"in the world," and it was really the dark habit of this secular order
which constituted the "nun's attire" at the time Sir George Simpson met
her in 1842.