of Lagunitas.

Colorless and sad is her daily life. Denied society by her isolation,
she is yet too proud to associate with her women dependants.

Her lord is away often in the field. His days are spent galloping
over his broad domains. There is no intellectual life, no change
of day and day. The years have silently buried themselves, with
no crown of happy memories. She left her merry home at the Alameda
shore of the great bay to be the lonely lady of this distant
domain. Her narrow nature has settled into imitative and mechanical
devotion, a sad, cold faith.

Youthful lack of education has not been repaired by any individual
experience of life. Maternity has been a mere physical epoch of
her dreary womanhood. The current of her days in narrow channels
sluggishly flows toward its close.

Even the laughing child runs away from the young "pathfinder." She
furtively peers at him from the shelter of the graceful vines and
rose bowers of her playground.

Maxime has exhausted the slender library of his friend. In the
peaceful evening hours he listens to weird stories of the lonely
land of the Far West--early discovery, zealous monkish exploration,
daring voyages in trackless unknown seas, and the descent of curious
strangers. Bold Sir Francis Drake, Cabrillo, Viscaino, Portala, the
good Junipero Serra of sainted memory, live again in these recitals.

Day by day passes. No news from the Americans at bay in the wilds