s."

"Thou heartless baby!" cried her indignant aunt, "when I love thee so,
and bring thy notes at the risk of my life, for thou knowest that thy
mother would pull the hair from my head. Thou little brat! to say I
could not marry, when I had twenty--"

Eulogia jumped up and pecked her on the chin like a bird. "Twenty-five,
my old mountain. I only joked with thee. Thou didst not marry because
thou hadst more sense than to trot about after a man. Is it not so, my
old sack of flour? I was but angry because I thought thou hadst helped
my mother last night."

"Never! I was sound asleep."

"I know, I know. Now trot away. I hear my mother coming," and Aunt
Anastacia obediently left her niece to the more congenial company of the
Senor Dumas.

III

The steep hills of San Luis Obispo shot upward like the sloping sides of
a well, so round was the town. Scarlet patches lay on the slopes--the
wide blossoms of the low cacti. A gray-green peak and a mulberry peak
towered, kithless and gaunt, in the circle of tan-coloured hills brushed
with purple. The garden of the mission was green with fruit trees and
silver with olive groves. On the white church and long wing lay the red
tiles; beyond the wall the dull earth huts of the Indians. Then the
straggling town with its white adobe houses crouching on the grass.

Eulogia was sixteen. A year had passed since Juan Tornel serenaded
beneath her window, and, if the truth must be told, she had almost
forgotten him. Many a glance had she shot over her prayer-book in the
mission church; many a pair of eyes, dreamy or fiery, had responded. But
she had spoken with no man. After a tempestuous scene with her mother,
during which Aunt Anastacia had wept profusely, a compromise had been
made: Eulogia had agreed to have no more flirtations until she was
sixteen, but at that age she should go to balls and have as many lovers
as she pleased.

She walked through the olive groves with Padre Moraga on the morning of
her sixteenth birthday. The new padre and she were the best of friends.

"Well," said the good old man, pushing the long white hair from his dark
face--it fell forward whenever he stooped--"well, my little one, thou
goest to thy first ball to-night. Art thou happy?"

Eulogia lifted her shoulder. Her small nose also tilted.

"Happy? There is no such thing as happiness, my father. I shall dance,
and flirt, and make all the young men fall in love with me. I shall
enjoy myself, that is