anov had loomed too great a personage to dream of
mating with a Californian; and as her sharp mater-
nal instinct had recognized his personal probity,
even his gallantries had seemed to her no more con-
sequent than the more catholic trifling of his officers.

"Holy Mary!" she whimpered, when her voice
came back. "Holy Mary! A heretic! And he
would take our Concha from us! And she would
go! To St. Petersburg! Ten thousand miles!
To the priests with her--now--this very day!"

Concha had thrown herself on her bed in belated
hope of siesta, when Malia (Rosa had been sent to
the house of Don Mario Sal in the valley) entered
with the message that she was to accompany her
parents to the Mission at once. She rose sullenly,
but in the manifold essentials of a girl's life she
had always yielded the implicit obedience exacted
by the Californian parent. In a few moments she
was riding out of the Presidio beside her father.
Dona Ignacia jolted behind in her carreta, a low and
clumsy vehicle, on solid wheels and springless,
drawn by oxen, and driven by a stable-boy on a
mustang. The journey was made in complete si-
lence save for the maledictions addressed to the oxen
by the boy, and an occasional "Ay yi!" "Madre de
Dios!" "Sainted Mary, but the sun bores a hole in
the head," from Dona Ignacia, whose increasing
discomfort banished wrath and apprehension for