The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Californians, by Gertrude Franklin Horn
Atherton

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Title: The Californians

Author: Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

Release Date: June 22, 2007 [eBook #21903]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CALIFORNIANS***

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THE CALIFORNIANS

by

GERTRUDE ATHERTON

John Lane: The Bodley Head
London and New York
1898

Third Edition
University Press, Cambridge, U. S. A.

TO N. L.

BOOK I

I

"I won't study another word to-day!" Helena tipped the table, spilling
the books to the floor. "I want to go out in the sun. Go home, Miss
Phelps, that's a dear. Anyhow, it won't do you a bit of good to stay."

Miss Phelps, young herself, glanced angrily at her briery charge,
longingly at the brilliant blue of sky and bay beyond the long window.

"I leave it to Miss Yorba." Her voice, fashioned to cut, vibrated a
little with the vigour of its roots. "You seem to forget, Miss Belmont,
that this is not your house."

"But you are just as much my teacher as hers. Besides, I always know
what Magdalena wants, and I know that she has had enough United States
history for one afternoon. When I go to England I'll get their version
of it. We're brought up to love their literature and hate them! Such
nonsense--"

"My dear Miss Belmont, I beg you to remember that you have but recently
passed your sixteenth birthday--"

"Oh, of course! If I'd been brought up in Boston, I'd be giving points
to Socrates and wondering why there were so many old maids in the world.
However, that's not the question at present. 'Lena, do tell _dear_ Miss
Phelps that she needs an afternoon off, and that if she doesn'