e fruit crop in the Santa Clara Valley. The
detail work about her place--such as setting out the fruit boxes,
selecting the moment when apricots or pears were ripe for the picking,
seeing that the trees, her permanent investment, were not injured by
wagon or picker, keeping her own accounts in balance with those of
Judge Tiffany--these and a hundred other little things she did herself
and did them well. Especially was the up-keep of the orchard her
special care; and this she managed with such native mother-sense that
one learned in trees might have told just when he crossed the unfenced
line from the Gray orchard to the Tiffany orchard.

To-night, Olsen was waiting to know whether she thought that the ten
rows of Moor Parks were ready for picking; he had just finished the
first crop of the Judge's Royals and a small gang would be without
pressing work on Monday morning. So they walked over the orchard
together, pressing a golden ball here and there, and decided that the
fruit was ripe and ready. Eleanor summoned Antonio for directions
about boxes and ladders. The hen-house had to be inspected, for
Eleanor was fumigating against the pip, brought into the Santa Lucia
by an importation of fancy Eastern chickens. To-morrow's menu of the
housekeeper was to be looked after. The things kept her busy until her
solitary Sunday evening supper.

Eleanor had dined alone so much that she had quite recovered from any
self-pity on that score. Like the daughter of convent manners that she
was, she kept up her self-respect by a little ceremony at this meal.
She dressed for it usually; at least she put on fresh ribbons and
flowers, gave a touch here and there to the table, held Maria to the
refinements of service.

However, as she opened her napkin that evening the rush and emotional
strain of the day brought a certain flash of introspection. It came
first when she lifted her eyes and caught sight of herself in the
mirror--dewy eyed, fresh, a pink rose in her hair, a pink ribbon at
her throat. What was she, so young, so feminine, doing there, supping
alone in state? She remembered the invitation of Lars Wark in Munich;
he and his wife, living the life artistic away over there, had sent to
ask her that she visit them and share their winter in the studio or
their summer on the coast of Brittany. Why, in the face of that
alluring invitation, did she suffer her soul to keep her in such
prisons as this? She could afford it; there was no qu