although his part was action, her stimulated in-
stincts taught her that she would rarely be long from
his mind. And what was she to seek to roll
stumbling blocks into the career of a man like that?
In this very garden, for four long days, she had
dreamed exalted dreams of the manifold gifts she
should develop for his solace at home and his
worldly advancement. She had once felt all a
girl's impatience when her mother's tears made her
father's departure on some distant mission more
difficult than need be, and although she knew now
that her capacity for tenderness was as great, she
resolved to mould herself in a larger shape than
that.

But she sighed and drooped a little. The burden
of woman's waiting seemed already to have de-
scended upon her. Two years were long--long.
There might be other delays. He might fall ill; he
had been ill before in that barbarous Russian north.
And in all that time it was doubtful if she received
a line from him, a hint of his welfare. The Boston
and British skippers came no more, and it was cer-
tain that no Russian ship would visit California
again until the treaty was signed and official news
of it had made its slow way to these uttermost
shores. She had resented, in her young ambition
and indocility, the chance that had stranded her,
equipped for civilization, on this rim of the world,
but never so much as in that moment, when she sat