It was quite true that no one was allowed to sleep that night of Rafael's last bachelor supper. Because of Miguel's death, there could be no dancing, but the hours passed merrily enough, for all that. The army men stayed until the faint gray shone in the east, when they mounted and rode north after the horses, started a day ahead.

Keith Bryton had ridden with the herd as far as Santa Ana, and then, to Angela's amusement, returned to San Juan. She was certain that his return had not been for Rafael's supper, but to see that she did not by some manoeuvre manage that it be a ladies' supper and graced by her attendance. She had in jest threatened to suggest it, and Keith felt very much as Teresa felt—it was quite time the bride were at hand to stop a flirtation bordering on the dangerous.

But, after all, the ladies of San Juan were not included. It was a carouse instead of an entertainment. Girls were there, and guitars; and the big Mission doors and wooden shutters inside the deep windows barred the outer world from the hilarity, the songs, the shrieks of laughter over toasts of the old men to the groom-elect.

At earliest dawn the army men, with promises and gold pieces to the girls, and an extra glass to Rafael and his bride, mounted their horses and rode north to catch up with the herd before it reached Los Angeles. One of the girls wept lest the one who had made her favorite might never ride that way again, and the wilder spirits marched around her with lighted candles, singing a funeral dirge, ending in a wild fandango.

Don Antonio was there, and old Ricardo Ruiz, and they sat through the night playing with the dice, and emptying each other's pockets in turn, and comparing the old entertainment with the new, between the drinks.

The fandango ended by Concha, the weeping one, doing the maddest dancing of all, and Fernando Mendez poured out goblets of wine to drink luck to her next lover.

"It is good luck for himself he wants, Concha!" called Rafael across the room. "Fernando is a coyote, always awake for young chickens!"

"Concha mia, he is jealous; never heed him, but drink wine with me to the next lover!"

"He offers her a glass of wine, Antonio," grunted old Don Ricardo. "Huh!—that is the love-making of California to-day!"

"True, Ricardo; at his age you or I would have been at her feet and our jewels on her breast."

"Fernando has no jewels left."

"I should say not. His father made love after our fashion, hence—"

"The deluge!"

"The deluge of poverty and Americanos," assented Antonio. "A plague on them both! They have changed the land!"

A burst of laughter from Rafael's end of the table drowned the grumblings of the old men. Rafael had told a story so very funny that the girls had shrieked and giggled and protested behind their fans.

"Fie, Don Rafael! and you to be a married man in a week!" "But a week is seven nights away, and all of them your own, Merced mia!"

"Merced!" called another man from a game of malia at an old table once used for altar service—"Merced, darling, never listen to a word he says! A paltry seven nights! My heart is at your feet for a lifetime!"

"Of nights or days, seÑor?" asked the girl, laughingly.

"She caught you there, SeÑor Gonzales," observed Bryton, who was dealing the cards. "Don Rafael, after all, makes the only definite offer."

"You are right, Don Keith," returned the other. "With the help of the Americanos, Don Rafael is learning to be a good maker of bargains."

"The sooner the rest of you learn the same trick, the better for California!" retorted Rafael.

"You hear?" said Don Ricardo.

"Sure," assented the major-domo. "What if his mother heard?"

"All the saints! There would be murder!"

"Por Dios!" exclaimed Rafael, as a servant opened a window because of the thick tobacco smoke; "it is daylight, and I must start for San Diego. My last bachelor carouse is ended, and none of us under the table!"

"How sad that we are still able to stand on our own feet!" laughed Merced. "See!" and she sprang to the top of a beautiful silver-decorated chest against the wall; "one of us is even able to dance good-bye to your last night of freedom! Good-bye, O free heart of Don Rafael! On some to-morrow the bride comes!"

"Holy Maria!" ejaculated Don Antonio, putting his glass down; "she is dancing on the donas of the bride!"

"The donas!" echoed Don Ricardo, aghast; "and the bride a young saint stolen from the Church!—the donas!"

"What's that?" asked Bryton, while the rest applauded the dancer. "Donas?"

"The gifts of the groom to the bride,—the gown, the wedding veil, the—holy God! it's sacrilege!"

"Is it?" asked the American; "then we'll stop it. Come to coffee, Merced!"

Without further ceremony he picked the girl up in his arms, and carried her, laughing and struggling, into the great refectory, where the Indian servants were placing breakfast on the table.

"That was quick work, Antonio," observed Don Ricardo, with a breath of relief.

"Sure; he is the best of all the Americanos. Ai! even more like the caballeros of other days than our own sons!" Don Ricardo did not care to commit himself so far as that. He contented himself with grumbling at Rafael's indifference.

"And the girl a young saint—meant to live in religion!"

Bryton rejoined them with a cup of coffee, and both the men hastened to assure him that it was not Rafael who was in fault, but the many glasses he had emptied.

"Sure, it was the glasses," affirmed Don Ricardo. "No man of California would let a girl of pleasure dance on the things sacred to the woman of his family; eh, Antonio?"

"Of course; at any other time Rafael would have thrown the girl through a window; truly, he would!"

"No doubt of it," agreed Bryton.

"DoÑa Luisa has given the boy a long rope. It must be that she has learned that it is too long—she comes back after the years to steady him with a wife,—and such a wife! Young, wealthy, beautiful!"

"And a young nun, all but the veil!"

"That seems rather a joke—or a tragedy—after all this," and Bryton motioned to the remainders of the night's carouse.

"If there is a joke, it is the devil playing it on the saints." "Sure; and the devil wins," agreed Don Antonio. "It is all settled. The DoÑa Luisa is a wise woman. Her son wins a wife, and the convent loses a fortune and a nun at the same time."

"Had the good son nothing to do with the arrangement?" asked the American, dryly.

"Oh, of course, seÑor. Three times he have gone to Mexico, where Felipe Estevan's daughter visit with his mother. He has time to sing many dozens of serenades,—all of the burning hearts and torment of love, and lost souls, to make a girl have pity. Maybe she have never before talked with one young man, one minute of her life; who knows?"

"It is good time she comes," observed Don Ricardo. "One year—two years, and Rafael, like Miguel, would be content with half-breed children and their mother. Little Marta's child is born, and they say she will not stay at Las Flores, where he sent her—not for the best house there!"

A peal of laughter reached them from the other room.

"Bravo!" called Rafael; "I take you at your word, Merced. A kiss to seal the compact!"

"Keep it for your wedding-day, Don Rafael," she retorted, and ran from him through the door into the room where the three men were talking. But Rafael caught her inside the portal, and dragged her back, his face flushed and his beautiful eyes glowing.

"I will have it!" he muttered, with his lips against her own. "You pretty devil, I will!"

"And this is the home your young nun will come to from her convent," Bryton remarked. "Some one said there was Indian blood in her family; it may prove fortunate, for she will need war-clubs instead of religion to quell this sort of thing."

"But with the help of her saints—"

"Of course," agreed Bryton; "with the help of her saints all things may happen."

An Indian servant came in from the plaza, and closed the door and stood with his back against it.

"The DoÑa Madalena, and DoÑa Dolores, and the SeÑora Bryton, stop in the calesha," he announced, stoically; "they come in!"

"Bar that door! they sha'n't; they must not!" called Bryton, but it was too late. The side door opened, and the three appeared—the two girls plainly frightened, but Mrs. Bryton beautifully audacious.

"Nonsense! DoÑa Teresa will not scold; we will stop only a minute. Your uncle and cousin are here—it is all right!" Then she saw Bryton, and laughed.

"I told you I would at least see inside," she observed, "and it is quite worth while. What a magnificent chest!" Bryton walked directly to her.

"I will see you to your carriage," he said, laying his hand on her arm. "What the devil did you mean by this bravado?"

She wrenched her arm free and regarded him coolly.

"Thanks. I came because I said I would come, and you said not to dare. 'Dare' is a risky word, amigo. We will go directly. We are going to the hills, and only halted to wish good luck to Rafael."

"Malediction!" muttered Don Antonio. "He can't be seen—he—"

A burst of laughter came from the dining-room, and the two girls retreated toward the door.

"Women!" breathed Dolores; "if DoÑa Teresa hears this—"

"It is the servants—only the servants," said Don Antonio. "Don Rafael has perhaps started on his journey; he will be disconsolate that—"

But at that moment Rafael and Fernando came in from the dining-room, one smoothing his hair and one arranging his cravat. Rafael was the less sober of the two, but he managed to bow with a certain grace as he took Mrs. Bryton's hand.

"My poor house is at your service, madama," he murmured, "and I am at your feet. I hastened to you as soon as—" —"As soon as he could get the other girls out the back door," remarked Fernando, aside to Bryton.

"Mr. Bryton was horribly cross to me for coming in; he thinks it too unconventional; he thinks I do not know the Spanish customs, and—"

"I offer myself as your teacher," said Rafael, looking straight into the blue eyes. "Believe me, seÑora, there are many delightful things to be learned in old California!"

"I shall remember your offer," she returned, smilingly. "See how sulky Mr. Bryton looks! He never takes time to be gallant himself."

"That is true," assented Rafael. "He never looks at the girls, or speaks except to tell them to keep quiet."

"Oh!" she replied, with a little malicious smile, "there is always a girl excepted!"

Bryton looked at her with impatient wonder; he was about to speak, when an Indian came in with a tray of coffee, and Rafael offered a cup to Mrs. Bryton.

"Honor me, madama, and let us hear of the girl who is an exception."

"Bravo! The exceptions are always of interest. Don Keith is forever a reproach to the rest of us; he has no vices."

"Or conceals them better!" put in Rafael, with a touch of malice. "You are to be unmasked, seÑor," murmured Dolores, with lenient eyes.

Bryton glanced at his watch and then with impatience at his sister-in-law.

"I have not the slightest idea of the lady's meaning," he said, coldly; "and if you want to make an early start for the hot springs—"

Mrs. Bryton shut her teeth together with a little click, at his palpable ignoring of herself.

"Oh—short memory of man!" she said, chidingly; "He has forgotten in a year!"

"A year?" Bryton stared at her with a puzzled frown, and a slight motion of his hand toward the door. That, with its little suggestion of authority, decided her.

"I shall tell it," she announced. "How many of you believe in love at first sight?"

"All of us, after meeting you!" declared Rafael, with an exaggerated bow.

"Sure!" agreed Don Ricardo.

"My husband, you know, is an engineer, and goes on long journeys into queer corners of the mining world."

"Bad habit for husbands with pretty wives," remarked Don Antonio.

"Last Winter," continued she, slowly sipping her coffee and watching Bryton; "last Winter he went to Mexico." "Pardon! We do not ask for the love affairs of your lucky husband, but—"

"But last Winter Don Keith went along; yes—he went along to look up some mining property in the Indian hills, and when he came back—Have any of you noticed the peculiar ring Mr. Bryton wears?"

"Angela!" said Keith, sharply; but she looked at him with smiling insolence.

"Oh, I know your little romance of DoÑa Espiritu; Teddy told me."

"Damn Teddy!" he remarked, while the rest shouted with laughter at the color flaming in his face.

"DoÑa Espiritu!" repeated Don Ricardo. "The lady of the Spirit—let us hope it was a good spirit, Don Keith—and that she was kind!"

"To her health!" cried Rafael. "Pour brandy, Fernando; we drink our last toast of this meeting to the love of Don Keith—to the DoÑa Espiritu!"

"I would rather see the ring than drink the toast," said Dolores. "May I, seÑor?"

"There is nothing remarkable about it, except that it is very, very old," and he held out his hand for her inspection. "An onyx engraved with the Aztec eagle—now the Mexican eagle."

"But given him by—" "By a lady who was of service to my brother, to an old priest, and to me."

"See how he drags in the others," laughed Mrs. Bryton. "Teddy and the priest got no ring; Ted had a knife-thrust, and the priest a black eye. Keith had some hurt on the head, from which he had a long and interesting case of fever."

"Let us hope DoÑa Espiritu nursed him through it, and the priest did not watch them too closely," remarked Rafael, with a meaning glance at Bryton. The last drink of brandy had been the one too many, and his smile was not nice.

"Did she nurse him through the illness?" whispered Madalena in Angela's ear.

"Oh, I could tell," said the latter, demurely; "but Keith evidently resents his romances being made public."

"SeÑorita, there is no more to tell," remarked Keith, coldly; "not even so much as Angela would suggest. My brother and an old priest and I lost our way in the hills; and seeing a light, we chanced on some religious meeting of a strange hill tribe of Indians. They thought we were spies of the Church or the government, and there was trouble. A lady, whom the Indians and the priest called by the name you heard, saved us all that night. She was the one person of the Catholic Church they would allow to know them well, and she was a nun or a novice."

"Santa Maria! and she gave you rings?"

"The ring was some talisman respected by the tribe. She put it on my finger after I had been struck down and—well—used up. It stopped them when words were of no use. We made a litter for the old priest, and tied Teddy on a burro,—he had a leg wound,—and we walked beside them over the wilderness trail until dawn came, and we met help. I fainted from loss of blood about that time, and Teddy and I recuperated in the house of the old priest. We never saw the lady again."

"You never saw her again after an adventure like that!" cried Fernando in amaze. "That is cold blood for you!"

"It may be that she was ugly—or old," suggested Rafael.

"On the contrary, she was so charming that he shouted for her in the delirium of the fever; that is how Teddy learned that she was the one exception among girls! But all their scheming could not learn her name from the priest or the Mexicans. 'DoÑa Espiritu' was all they ever heard. Teddy fancied they had shipped her to Spain for the adventure with a heretic that one night." "Is it all true, seÑor?" asked Dolores. "DoÑa Angela laughs at it, and you frown; and between the two, how are we to know how serious it may all be to you?"

"Serious enough to make him bare his head at every old battered shrine for her sake," said Angela, with a little shrug; "and an old ring of his mother's was lost from his finger on that wilderness trail, while the Mexican eagle took its place. Oh, nuns are only women after all, and much can happen in the length of a Mexican night!"

"Well, seÑor," said Dolores, with sudden courage, "I am a good Catholic, thank God! and I see no sacrilege in the sort of love for which a man bares his head at a shrine. SeÑor Bryton, the story will make us of California more than ever your friends!"

"Sure," agreed Don Antonio.

"I am at your feet, seÑorita," said Bryton, with kindly deference. "Now, Mrs. Bryton, if you have no other—romances—to elaborate and embellish, perhaps you will allow me to see you to your carriage, before I start for Los Angeles. Don Rafael is detained by us when he should be on his way south, and—"

"Oh—I beg—" began Rafael, but Madalena interrupted. "Not another moment must we stay. Aunt Teresa will scold us well for this!"

"For taking pity on a lonely bachelor?" asked Rafael.

"Lonely?" repeated Dolores. "We will come again when the bride comes. Until then we leave you to prepare your soul with this—and this!"

She motioned to the decanter, and picked up the scarlet fan of Mercedes.

"You cruel one! You would make DoÑa Angela think—but do not think it, madama! I assure you, it is my mother's—or my aunt's—or—"

"He never had an aunt," laughed Madalena. "Come, Uncle Ricardo, DoÑa Maxima wants you at home; she is at our house saying things to make your ears burn."

"Sure!" said Don Ricardo, getting on his feet and taking the cane offered him. "But it is in honor of DoÑa Luisa Arteaga I am here. When her son makes gay company, it is the time for the steady friends of the family to stay by. So I am here, Madalena mia; and I shall say to my wife I was here all the evening, right here at this table as a respectable friend, and won seventy pesos!"

"Sure, he did," assented Don Antonio. "But it is over! The sun is up, it is good time to go home." Rafael managed in the farewells to kiss the hand of Mrs. Bryton twice, and to be observed by Bryton only once. That was enough of victory for the moment, and when the door was closed he flung himself into a chair and reached again for the decanter.

"Ai! she is delicious—the madama whose husband plans mines and goes on long voyages! How she makes our women look tame!"

"Tah! She is insolent, that is all. We would lock up our women if they had the American way. Drink coffee—not more brandy."

"To the devil with your coffee! And it is not an American way—she is English—the delicious lady!"

"Worse still!" grunted Fernando.

"How?" roared Rafael, straightening up in his chair. "You forget, seÑor! She is my friend—my very illustrious friend—she is—no matter what she is. Her husband goes on long voyages—and you must apologize to me—you hear? I have the admiration for her—I—"

"You are drunk; that is what ails you, Rafael," said his friend, bluntly. "You think that you are in love with that woman, but you are only drunk."

"Drunk—I? And you call her—call the illustrious lady who is a friend of mine, 'that woman!' SeÑor, there are two swords on the wall. You take your choice—you—" Fernando tried to avoid him, but he wrenched the sword from the wall and lunged at him wickedly.

But for a girl who shrieked and rushed from a shadowy doorway, and flung herself on the arm of Rafael, it would have gone ill with Fernando.

"Rafael mio!" she cried, clinging to him, "for the love of God!"

"Marta!" he cried, and dropped the weapon. "I—did I not tell you—"

He broke off vaguely, and avoided Fernando's eyes; that young man laughed good-naturedly.

"Another illustrious friend whose husband goes on long voyages!" he said, lightly. "I leave you, my friend, until you are sober. SeÑorita, adios."

Rafael stared moodily at the girl. She was a pretty bit of bronze flesh with passionate eyes.

"I told you to stay on the ranch," he said at last; but she broke into tears and caught his hands.

"I could not! They all know—the old woman and the priest. They thought I was dying, and he came and I had to tell him the name of the child's father; and—and when my own father comes back from the herding he will beat me, and I will not stay! I will not! He is not a fine gentleman, Rafael; he is only a herder who was a soldier in Mexico. Fine words would not count with him, unless it would be words before the priest, and you promised—"

"Jesus, Maria, and Joseph!" burst out Rafael. "What an hour to come with a list of a man's promises! I've been up all night, and I'd fight with the saints if they came my way. Go, Marta; I will tell Antonio to make a home for you away from the crazy herder. I—I am very busy; I start south in an hour."

"But, Rafael—"

"Well—well?"

"They say you are to marry an illustrious seÑorita—that you—"

"They say a lot there is no sense in saying!" he burst out angrily. "If you had stayed on the ranch, you would not have heard their lies or—"

"Ai! I am happy that it is not true. But that one lady—whose hands you kissed—Rafael—"

"Oh, for the love of God, go!" he said. "You women drive a man mad! You—"

Fernando rushed in, interrupting him:

"Rafael! Your mother—she is here!"

"My mother?"

"On the hill—her carriage—a man brings the news."

"Damnation! Coming here—now? And my head—Yes, it's true, Fernando; I was drunk. Help me to think! Make them clear all this away!" and he pointed to the tables and the dice and the cards on the floor. "Por Dios, how my head swims! And my mother is no fool—she will see! Think, Fernando! Help me to plan something. And you, Marta, let yourself not be seen!"

The frightened girl was only too glad to slip away, while the rest of the group stripped the rooms of evidences of the night's orgy.

"Mount a horse and ride to the beach," decided Fernando. "You will be gone on business, to see about—eh—to see if the vessel for hides has come in. Make yourself decent, and I will send a messenger after you. Don't be too easily found—you are likely to be drunker in an hour than you are now."

"Curse the brandy! And Bryton was to come back to see me about—oh, God knows what! But don't let my mother see him—an accursed heretic Americano, you know! Dios! If I could only sleep for an hour!"

Fernando fairly pushed him out at the door.

"Take a sea bath; drink black coffee; get out of sight while I receive the bride!"

Then, after the door was closed on the groom-elect, he took a quick survey of the room. "That is right, open all the windows. Some one cut lilies—the white ones—quick! Hide this fan for Merced. Light those candles on the Virgin's shrine, and put the lilies there and on the table. Whose pipe is this under the edge of our lady's lace robe? It smells vilely—take it away! Where is the key of the chest of the donas? Here it is in the chest, and that is unlocked—only Rafael could do that. Let us hope he has not let Merced try on the wedding-dress! Are there no more flowers? Get some for the room of the seÑorita. Tell some one to make French coffee. Manuel, put out the light."

Dolores and Madalena ran through the open door, breathless.

"Fernando, she is here—the SeÑora Arteaga, and—"

"Already! Aunt Teresa told us to run and help; she will come also. Don Rafael?"

"Has ridden to the harbor."

"More likely to bed," remarked Madalena, skeptically.

"SeÑorita!"

"Sh—h!" whispered Dolores, with lifted hand. "The carriage; they are in the plaza!"

She rushed out, and the others followed. Teresa was there greeting DoÑa Luisa; but all fell suddenly silent as they noticed the gray-white of the old face, and the frail figure as she descended from the carriage with the help of Fernando Mendez and Ana—his cousin's widow.

Fernando cast one glance at the girl who sat her horse and glanced over their heads for the face she did not see.

A wizened old Indian woman alighted from a cart and came to her and touched her foot on the stirrup.

"It is your new land, little mistress," she said, in a tongue not understood by the others, "the land of your handsome lover."

The girl looked again across the many faces gathering in the plaza, and then accepted the help of Don Antonio to alight.

"But he is not here, Polonia—the handsome lover," she returned, and then walked past all the others and slipped her hand under the arm of DoÑa Luisa.

"A thousand welcomes, seÑora," said Fernando, at the portal. "The town will rejoice to-day."

"One welcome I had a right to expect at this door," the old lady answered, "and he is not here."

"He will be heart-broken. He did not think you had yet reached San Diego. To-day he was to start for there. Will it please you to have this seat?"

"Not yet," she said. "Raquelita!" Raquel Estevan gently disengaged her other hand from Dolores, and the frail old woman led her to the little shrine of the Virgin, where the candles glimmered. The others halted at the door, but Fernando and Dolores and Ana knelt also as the old woman and the girl from Mexico clasped hands and bent heads before the statue in the niche.

The old woman rose first and kissed the girl's forehead.

"My daughter," she said, faintly, "I welcome you for my son and for myself, to the land where you are mistress. Now, seÑor!"

Fernando placed a chair for her, and she sank into it wearily.

"My last journey, my children! You are the son of Manuel Mendez?—we called ourselves cousins once. I present you—all of you—to my daughter—DoÑa Raquel Estevan."

"At your feet, seÑorita!" said Fernando.

"I appreciate the honor of your acquaintance, seÑor," replied Raquel, in the conventional greeting of the day and land. Then the others crowded about, and spoke many pretty things of welcome. But in the midst of it all DoÑa Luisa arose, and leaning on Jacoba's arm, passed into the room prepared for her. The group left behind stared into each other's eyes. "How frail! How could any creature like that make the journey?" asked Fernando. "She has been very ill."

"She is ill; we dare not mention it to her!"

"But Rafael—her son—"

"Must not be told, so she says; not until the wedding is over. All at once she has gone like that. It is the heart, seÑor, and she is old. It may be months—may be days—may be only hours, and we can do nothing but keep her quiet and happy."

"Santa Maria!" muttered Dolores, "and Rafael—"

"His heart it will break—no? To not see him at the door is like a bad omen. She likes not the new Americanos' way of business—to be gone at breakfast time to look at ships! But of course he is very good!"

"You are very good," replied Dolores. "Have they sent for Rafael?"

"I will see," said Fernando, and went away muttering, "The so good Rafael!"

"Oh! we have a thousand things to ask you, Raquel," said Madalena. "Could you have been a nun and been happy if—Rafael had not found you?"

"To work for Mother Church—is not that of happiness?"

"Never to dance! Never to hear a serenade! Never to watch on moonlight nights for a handsome caballero!"

"I would as soon live in a tomb," confessed Dolores.

"But if you had never seen a dance, would you miss dancing? My mother's people were priests; she was to have been a nun. My blood and my teaching have been of the church. My life has been lived in one little narrow strip of the world. All at once the world changed. Sometimes it bewilders me, this change. You say 'happy,' but I don't think I know that word as you know it. Maybe I never shall learn it—who knows? But I can find work for the Church even here in the world, and you will all be my good friends, and—I shall be content."

DoÑa Luisa had entered the room while she was speaking, and nodded her approval.

"Content? You will be happy, my child; you will be with Rafael! Have you seen the chest of the donas? Is it not handsome? If we only had the key!"

"There is a little silver key on the shrine," said Dolores, and ran to get it.

"Aha! On the shrine of the Virgin!" said DoÑa Luisa. "Is that not love, Raquelita?"

"I am willing to believe it," she said, and took the little key, only to hand it back to Dolores. "You open it—and may you be the next happy bride!"

Dolores rushed to unlock the chest, and Madalena to lift the lid, and Ana, as well as the older women, exclaimed at the richness of the contents.

"Ai! Raquel Estevan, thou happy one!" cried Ana; "you have more luck than a queen!"

They pulled out embroideries and laces and jewels, with little shrieks of ecstasy at the beauty and fineness of them. Raquel looked on, smiling at their delight.

"Aha! is not that a lover, Raquelita?" repeated DoÑa Luisa. "Bring me the mantillas. Those two are for the bridesmaids; see how they look on Madalena and Dolores—fine—fine! And here is the wedding-veil—and the shoes, and the rosary—not anything is forgotten! He is so dear, so good—my Rafael!"

The girls insisted on placing the wreath and veil on Raquel's head, but she broke from them at sight of a silken scarf of green and red and white.

"Ah! more than all the jewels!" she cried, and clasped it to her bosom. "The flag of my own Mexico! I will love him for that—I will love him with all my heart!"

"Ah! thou hast said it at last," said DoÑa Luisa, in triumph; "never forget thou hast said it!" "When I say it," whispered Dolores to Ana, "it will be to the man, not to his mother."

"Come to me, daughter," said DoÑa Luisa, sinking back into a chair. "The heart feels—feels almost too happy! My dear Raquel—my dear Rafael!"

"The Americanos will be crazy to see this wedding in the old California fashion," said Madalena, adjusting Raquel's veil caressingly. "SeÑora Bryton would give her two ears—ouch! DoÑa Ana, you break my arm!"

"Give thanks it is not your neck, babbler!" muttered Ana. DoÑa Luisa looked at the two intently a moment.

"Who is the American seÑora of the two ears?" she inquired; "and why should the wedding of my son have interest for such—persons?"

"She—she was a cousin of Don Eduardo, and now she is married again—and she visits us, and her husband is some kind of engineer to make railroads, and mines, and—"

A pinch from Dolores stopped her this time, but it was very clumsily done, DoÑa Luisa saw it.

"Ah," she said, quietly; "and when is he to bring the railroad of the Americanos to the Californias, eh?"

The women and girls stared at each other.

"I—I cannot tell her," murmured Madalena to Jacoba; "you speak! Of course it is not DoÑa Angela's husband who does it, but—the railroad does come—so they say."

"Why do you whisper, and not speak aloud?" demanded DoÑa Luisa, putting aside the hand of Raquel, who tried to quiet her rising resentment. "Is there not anyone here to speak plainly, and the truth? What is it you try to hide from me?"

"Oh, Luisa," begged Jacoba, tearfully, "do not make of this a thing to trouble you! No one tries really to hide things; it is not here the railroad is to be first; it is only talk; it may never happen—it may—"

"Where?" demanded DoÑa Luisa. And Jacoba, with tears in her eyes, confessed having heard of the impertinence of the Americanos, who meant to build a new road of their own instead of the wagon trail to San Antonio.

"That was good enough for our fathers. What is now wrong with the San Antonio road?"

"Not anything, of course; but the government—"

"Ah ha!" and the old voice lifted to a shrill note of triumph in having at last found the key of the question. "The American government! I thought that would be it. What new crime do they plan against the Californias? This it is to grow old and lame—they would hide it from me! Speak, and tell me all! Does the fine new government want my home to quarter their pigs of soldiers in, as they did in the Mission in other days? And would my friends have hidden it from me until these upstarts were across my door?"

"Luisa—chulita—you were not well. Rafael said you were not to be told; but since you think we mean to speak falsely, or deceive you—"

"Where is it to come? How near?" DoÑa Luisa was not to be led an iota from the main question. But at her demand, Jacoba tried to speak, and failed, and could only weep noisily at the hardness in her old cousin's tones.

"Why do you make Aunt Jacoba weep like that?" demanded Ana, resentfully. "What has she to do with the railroads—she or her family? Your good Rafael does more to bring them than any one else. He sells them land; he and Don Eduardo help them to get the rights to go where they please. Aunt Jacoba would not do that; her father and her husband would be burned at the stake before they would help these new people to use the graves of the holy fathers at San Gabriel as a road-bed!"

"Mother of God!"

DoÑa Luisa arose, as though to annihilate the daring speaker; but Raquel caught her and she sank back in her chair with one tremulous hand extended to the frightened Ana.

"Go on!" she said, hoarsely. "Go on! Perjure thy soul with lies, since thou lovest them so,—lies against a son of Mother Church. Go on!"

Ana shrank, and faltered, but the accusation brought back her courage.

"If the truth is shameful, the shame is not mine," she retorted. "Through two of the Arteaga ranches in the north has Rafael sold the right of way for the American railroad to Monterey. That it might come closer to his ranch-houses, he has let it be built across the forgotten graves of the Mission fathers. Beneath the feet of the Americanos will lie the holy apostles of our Mother Church! The Protestant heretics will wheel their pigs to market across the gardens where Ava Marias have sounded all the years of religion in California!"

DoÑa Luisa stared at her with white face, and her lips moved stiffly when she tried to speak. The other women and girls were clinging together in tears, and Raquel stood with her strong young arms about her, as though to guard her against the world.

Bryton, who had strolled back through the patio for a final word with Rafael, had heard nothing of the arrivals; he pushed open the door at the back, and then halted at the sight of the group there,—the women and girls frightened and weeping, the scattered wealth of silks and laces flung across chairs and tables, and the three girls with bride-like veils.

"Is it—a witchcraft?" half whispered DoÑa Luisa at last; but the whisper was plainly heard above the sobs of the girls, who scarcely dared to breathe. "It is a work of the fiends to snare his soul for hell Immaculate Mother, let it not be!"

Raquel bent above her with murmured assurances of divine help, and the old woman suddenly caught the hands of the girl in her own and held her, staring in her face with questioning eyes; then she spoke eagerly, fiercely.

"Your wish but a moment ago! You wished for some great work for Mother Church—to fight evil out in the world; your guardian angel heard the wish and has sent you a soul to save from the heretics,—the soul of the man you love!"

Raquel stared at her, but did not speak. Her eyes looked a bit frightened, but she rested her cheek on the frail old hands, and caressed them reassuringly.

DoÑa Luisa lifted the gold and ebony crucifix, and held it above her head.

"Kneel!" she said; and the girls and women did so. Bryton, in the doorway, caught sight of the girl in the bride's veil, and made a movement toward her, but was checked by the voice of the mother.

"It is for the soul of the man you love, Raquel mia. Never forget that—never forget!"

"I will not forget," said the girl, gently; and at the sound of the voice Keith Bryton's jaw set in a tense, ugly way, and he stepped back into the shadow.

"Then swear by the Holy Mother of God!" said the old voice, and the crucifix above the head of the kneeling girl was held rigidly steady.

"I swear by the Holy Mother of God!"

"Swear by the blood of Christ crucified!"

"I swear by the blood of Christ crucified!"

"To stand as a guard over the soul of Rafael!" The old voice had a faintness, despite the steady words; the end of her strength had come.

The eyes of Raquel widened ever so little as she realized what she was promising. There was an involuntary pause before she spoke again, and then the absolute despair of the mother, and her one hope, swept over the girl's consciousness, and a spark of the martyr fire lit her own soul.

"To stand as guard over the soul of Rafael," said she, steadily.

"So long as you both shall live!" "So long as—we both—shall—live."

Then the crucifix fell to the tiled floor, and the old face looked very gray, as she sank back on the chair; and Jacoba smothered a shriek at sight of her eyes; and Raquel, still on her knees, clasped her about the waist and whispered:

"DoÑa Luisa, DoÑa Luisa!"

The staring eyes regained a momentary glimmer of consciousness at the sound of the girl's voice, and she lifted her hand again as though it still held the crucifix.

"Until—the day—of—" and then the sentence trailed along into the eternal silences of the unseen land.

"SeÑora!" called Raquel, appealingly; but Ana caught her by the shoulder and looked in her face, and said:

"God help you, Raquel Estevan! To the recording angel she has taken that oath."

Keith Bryton closed the door on the weeping women, and walked out through the old refectory to the inner court, where he met Fernando.

"What is it, seÑor?" he asked. Bryton looked at him much as though he had not been there.

"I—I scarcely know," he said, dully. "You had better—" "But you have the face of a ghost!" interrupted Fernando. "Something has happened—in there?"

"I think so," agreed the American, recovering under Fernando's curious gaze. "Some one is ill—or—"

Fernando ran past him, and Bryton walked slowly along the inner court to where the one-time baptistry lay roofless to the sky. Through an old doorway with the Aztec sun cut in the coping, he passed into the old graveyard of the padres, and thence to the great altar-place of the old earthquake ruin. Even there the cries of the girls came to him through an open window—a wailing chorus of tragedy. Then an old Indian untied the ropes of the belfry, and the toll of death sounded along the valley. But it seemed very far away. He stared at the half-pagan decorations of the old stonework—never the cross of Christ anywhere on them—and sat so still that two linnets lit almost at his feet and were not afraid.

"I wondered why I should stray back to this little corner of the world," he said at last, "and now—now I reckon I'm finding out. God! I feel like a bad dream. And my hands tied!"

He paced back and forth on the old altar-place, until the mad clatter of hoofs coming from the sea cut across the tolling of the bells and told him the lost bridegroom—the man she said she loved and would never forget—had been found.

He swore softly as he crossed the plaza to the veranda of Juan Alvara. The old man, rolling his first cigarro of the day, was sitting there on the bench in the early sunlight.

"Don Juan," he said, holding out his hand, "I ride to catch up with the officers and go with them into the Indian country, and I may not see San Juan again for a long time. Your home has always been a pleasant place, and I thank you for many courtesies."

The old man shook his hand gravely.

"Adios! You come back to San Juan—no?"

"Perhaps not," said Bryton. "If there is anything I can do for you in Los Angeles—"

"Thanks, seÑor; there is nothing. My daughters go there in a week with the wedding party. For whom think you old TomÁs tolls the bell?"

When informed, he stared vaguely at the Americano. Alvara was growing old. Teresa had warned them all that no one should tell him until his breakfast was over and he had had his smoke.

"Luisa! the DoÑa Luisa! Dead, you say?—before the wedding-day? No, seÑor, pardon, but you have not understood. I know Luisa Arteaga when she is still a little girl—and always. She not dying before she have marry the boy like she want."

Still, his hand trembled as he reached for his cane. Across the plaza Indians and Mexicans were moving toward the Mission. It was early for San Juan to be astir in the street. Old Matia, who had been nurse to Miguel and Rafael, went past, not seeing the two men for the tears in her eyes. Yes—after all, there was trouble—but DoÑa Luisa!

In his perturbation he turned, and again held out his hand.

"Adios, seÑor," he repeated; "but you coming back for sure. To San Juan all people coming back some time. You go with the horses across the deserts?"

"Yes, I am going across the deserts. Adios!"