out it?"

"I will marry a Spaniard," said Elena, rebelliously. "A Spaniard, and no
other."

"Thou wilt do what?" asked a cold voice from the door. The girls gave a
little scream. Elena turned pale, even Francisca's hands twitched.

Dona Jacoba was an impressive figure as she stood in the doorway; a tall
unbowed woman with a large face and powerful penetrating eyes. A thin
mouth covering white teeth separated the prominent nose and square chin.
A braid of thick black hair lay over her fine bust, and a black silk
handkerchief made a turban for her lofty head. She wore a skirt of heavy
black silk and a shawl of Chinese crepe, one end thrown gracefully over
her shoulder.

"What didst thou say?" she demanded again, a sneer on her lips.

Elena made no answer. She stared through the window at the servants
laying the table in the dining room on the other side of the court, her
breath shortening as if the room had been exhausted of air.

"Let me hear no more of that nonsense," continued her mother. "A strange
remark, truly, to come from the lips of a Californian! Thy father has
said that his daughters shall marry men of his race--men who belong to
that island of the North; and I have agreed, and thy sisters are well
married. No women are more virtuous, more industrious, more religious,
than ours; but our men--our young men--are a set of drinking gambling
vagabonds. Go to thy room and pray there until supper."

Elena ran out of an opposite door, and Dona Jacoba sat down on a
high-backed chair and held out her hand for the wedding-gown. She
examined it, then smiled brilliantly.

"The lace is beautiful," she said. "There is no richer in California,
and I have seen Dona Trinidad Iturbi y Moncada's and Dona Modeste
Castro's. Let me see thy mantilla once more."

Francisca opened a chest nearly as large as her bed, and shook out a
long square of superb Spanish lace. It had arrived from the city of
Mexico but a few days before. The girls clapped their admiring hands, as
if they had not looked at it twenty times, and Dona Jacoba smoothed it
tenderly with her strong hands. Then she went over to the chest and
lifted the beautiful silk and crepe gowns, one by one, her sharp eyes
detecting no flaw. She opened another chest and examined the piles of
underclothing and bed linen, all of finest woof, and deeply bordered
with the drawn work of Spain.

"All is well," she said, returning to her chair. "I see nothing more to
be done. Thy