uous, and there was never any difficulty in having it for the
old woman who came once a week from the village to do the washing. She
often said that when she touched it, it gave her "goose flesh," the
"feel" was so queer. She had never seen anything like it in all her long
experience in her particular line of business.

Crescimir's visits to Tulucay were frequent now and the little
Christchild always went with him, his greatest delight seeming to be to
see Crescimir and Jovita together.

The day for the wedding was set to be the day before Christmas, for it
seemed well that as that season had first made them known to each other,
it should see them made man and wife.

The rainless summer and autumn passed and winter came with its green
grass and new flowers.

Never had there been such a prosperous year for the Napa Valley, and the
fields were fast blossoming with little white cottages, while golden
vineyards were growing higher up the hillsides driving the chaparral
back from its old inheritance as the Gringos did the natives. The town
had increased to nearly twice its former size, so Crescimir's gardens
were much sought, and he no longer was compelled to labour from sunrise
till sunset to keep the weeds away, for now he was able to hire the
hardest work done and enjoy the fruits of his first years' toil.

The month of December came and the leaves on the poplar trees in the
village were turning golden, just lingering long enough to mingle
lovingly for a while with the new-born green of winter, and then be
hidden by the growth of broad leaved plants as soon as they had fallen
brown upon the earth, producing that endless harmony of Californian
nature, a life everlasting.

There were a few orange coloured poppies nodding in the mesas but violet
star-flowers scattered over the lower meadows were powerful enough, by
reason of their numbers, to conquer the colour of the grass, while the
fields near the river were yellow with juicy cowslips.

Now the blue dome of St. Helena was not so often visible, for the clouds
hovered about it filled with wealth giving rain.

Ploughing and planting had begun and in some places the grain had
already started; blackbirds in hosts were perched on all the fences,
watching the sowers and chattering saucily to each other as they snapped
their bead-like eyes in anticipation of the feast so profusely spreading
for them.

Over the low lands where the bay stretched its many arms in and out,