ests, or meadows carpeted with the tiny white and yellow flowers
of early summer. Wide patches of blue where the willows ended, and
immense banks of daisies bordering fields of golden grain, bending and
shimmering in the wind with the deep even sweep of rising tide. Then the
lake, long, irregular, half choked with tules, closed by a marsh. The
valley framed by mountains of purplish gray, dull brown, with patches of
vivid green and yellow; a solitary gray peak, barren and rocky, in
sharp contrast to the rich Californian hills; on one side fawn-coloured
slopes, and slopes with groves of crouching oaks in their hollows;
opposite and beyond the cold peak, a golden hill rising to a mount of
earthy green; still lower, another peak, red and green, mulberry and
mould; between and afar, closing the valley, a line of pink-brown
mountains splashed with blue.

Such was a fragment of Don Roberto Duncan's vast rancho, Los Quervos,
and on a plateau above the willows stood the adobe house, white and
red-tiled, shaped like a solid letter H. On the deep veranda, sunken
between the short forearms of the H, Dona Jacoba could stand and issue
commands in her harsh imperious voice to the Indians in the rancheria
among the willows, whilst the long sala behind overflowed with the gay
company her famous hospitality had summoned, the bare floor and ugly
velvet furniture swept out of thought by beautiful faces and flowered
silken gowns.

Behind the sala was an open court, the grass growing close to the great
stone fountain. On either side was a long line of rooms, and above the
sala was a library opening into the sleeping room of Dona Jacoba on one
side, and into that of Elena, her youngest and loveliest daughter, on
the other. Beyond the house were a dozen or more buildings: the kitchen;
a room in which steers and bullocks, sheep and pigs, were hanging;
a storehouse containing provisions enough for a hotel; and the
manufactories of the Indians. Somewhat apart was a large building with
a billiard-room in its upper story and sleeping rooms below. From her
window Elena could look down upon the high-walled corral with its
prancing horses always in readiness for the pleasure-loving guests, and
upon the broad road curving through the willows and down the valley.

The great house almost shook with life on this brilliant day of the
month of June, 1852. Don Roberto Duncan, into whose shrewd Scotch hands
California had poured her wealth for forty years,