his consent to this long delay of their nuptials.

Her thoughts since his advent had flown on many
journeys and known little rest. She had been rudely
awakened and stripped of her girlish illusions in
those days and nights of battle between pride and
her dazzled womanhood when, in the new humility
of love, she believed herself to be but one of a hun-
dred pretty girls in the eyes of this accomplished and
fortunate Russian. The interval had been brief,
but not long enough for the grandeur in her nature to
awaken almost concurrently with her passions, and
she had planned a life, in which, guided and uplifted
by the star of fidelity, and delivered from the friv-
olous and commonplace temptations of other wom-
en, she should devote herself to the improvement
and instruction not only of the Indians but of the
youth of her own class. The schools founded by the
estimable and enterprising Borica had practically
disappeared, and she was by far the best educated
woman in California. For such there was a mani-
fest and an inexorable duty. She would live to be
old, she supposed, like all the Arguellos and
Moragas; but hidden in her unspotted soul would
be the flame of eternal youth, fed by an ideal and
a memory that would outlive her weary, insignifi-
cant body. And in it she would find her courage
and her inspiration, as well as an unwasting sym-
pathy for those she taught.