t the remembered school-girl hand that had
penciled underneath the words, "wishes the favor of an audience with
his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant-Governor of the Californias."

Paul looked inquiringly at the servant. "The gnadige Fraulein was in
her own salon. Would EXCELLENCY walk that way? It was but a step; in
effect, the next apartment."

Paul followed him into the hall with wondering steps. The door of the
next room was open, and disclosed a handsomely furnished salon. A tall
graceful figure rose quickly from behind a writing-table, and advanced
with outstretched hands and a frank yet mischievous smile. It was
Yerba.

Standing there in a grayish hat, mantle, and traveling dress, all of
one subdued yet alluring tone, she looked as beautiful as when he had
last seen her--and yet--unlike. For a brief bitter moment his
instincts revolted at this familiar yielding up in his fair
countrywomen of all that was distinctively original in them to alien
tastes and habits, and he resented the plastic yet characterless
mobility which made Yerba's Parisian dress and European manner fit her
so charmingly and yet express so little. For a brief critical moment he
remembered the placid, unchanging simplicity of German, and the
inflexible and ingrained reserve of English, girlhood, in opposition to
this indistinctive cosmopolitan grace. But only for a moment. As soon
as she spoke, a certain flavor of individuality seemed to return to her
speech.

"Confess," she said, "it was a courageous thing for me to do. You
might have been somebody else--a real Excellency--or heaven knows what!
Or, what is worse in your new magnificence, you might have forgotten
one of your oldest, most humble, but faithful subjects." She drew back
and made him a mock ceremonious curtsy, that even in its charming
exaggeration suggested to Paul, however, that she had already made it
somewhere seriously.

"But what does it all mean?" he asked, smiling, feeling not only his
doubts and uneasiness vanish, but even the years of separation melt
away in her presence. "I know I went to bed last night a very humble
individual, and yet I seem to awaken this morning a very exalted
personage. Am I really Commander of the Faithful, or am I dreaming?
Might I trouble you, as my predecessor Abou Hassan did Sweetlips, to
bite my little finger?"

"Do you mean to say you have not seen the 'Auzeiger?'" she returned,
taking a small German printed sheet from the tabl