brother will bring the emeralds, and the English plate will
come before the week is over."

"Is it sure that Santiago will come in time for the wedding?" asked
a half-English granddaughter, whose voice broke suddenly at her own
temerity.

But Dona Jacoba was in a gracious mood.

"Surely. Has not Don Roberto gone to meet him? He will be here at four
to-day."

"How glad I shall be to see him!" said Francisca. "Just think, my
friends, I have not seen him for seven years. Not since he was eleven
years old. He has been on that cold dreadful island in the North all
this time. I wonder has he changed!"

"Why should he change?" asked Dona Jacoba. "Is he not a Cortez and a
Duncan? Is he not a Californian and a Catholic? Can a few years in an
English school make him of another race? He is seven years older, that
is all."

"True," assented Francisca, threading her needle; "of course he could
not change."

Dona Jacoba opened a large fan and wielded it with slow curves of her
strong wrist. She had never been cold in her life, and even a June day
oppressed her.

"We have another guest," she said in a moment--"a young man, Don Dario
Castanares of Los Robles Rancho. He comes to buy cattle of my husband,
and must remain with us until the bargain is over."

Several of the girls raised their large black eyes with interest. "Don
Dario Castanares," said one; "I have heard of him. He is very rich and
very handsome, they say."

"Yes," said Dona Jacoba, indifferently. "He is not ugly, but much too
dark. His mother was an Indian. He is no husband, with all his leagues,
for any Californian of pure Castilian blood."

II

Elena had gone up to her room, and would have locked the door had she
possessed a key. As it was, she indulged in a burst of tears at the
prospect of marrying an Englishman, then consoled herself with the
thought that her best-beloved brother would be with her in a few hours.

She bathed her face and wound the long black coils about her shapely
head. The flush faded out of her white cheeks, and her eyelids were less
heavy. But the sadness did not leave her eyes nor the delicate curves of
her mouth. She had the face of the Madonna, stamped with the heritage of
suffering; a nature so keenly capable of joy and pain that she drew both
like a magnet, and would so long as life stayed in her.

She curled herself in the window-seat, looking down the road for the
gray cloud of dust that would herald her brother. But