c to get rid
of the load as quickly as possible. By and by she would go back to her
writing; and that, and her duties, should be every bit of her life
henceforth.

At the end of a week she discovered that she was still receptive to the
aesthetic delights. It was early spring. The soft air caressed the
senses, perfumed with violet and lilac, Castilian roses, new clover, and
the breath of mountain forests, brought on the long sighs of the wind.
Never was there such a _bouquet_ since Time began. Over a high bush on
the lawn opposite her window the long "bridal wreaths" tumbled. The
meadows were full of mustard, the bright green leaves hardly visible, so
thick were the yellow blossoms.

Once she rode to the foot-hills, escorted by Dick. They were covered
with yellow and purple lupins, miniature jungles which harboured nothing
more sanguinary than the gopher and the cotton-tail. The tawny poppies
had hills all to themselves, a blaze of colour as fiery as the sun to
which they lifted their curved drowsy lips. The Mariposa lilies grew by
the creeks, in the dark shade of meeting willows. The gold-green moss
was like plush on the trees. From the hills the great valley looked like
a dense forest out of which lifted the tower of an enchanted castle. Not
another signal of man was to be seen, nothing but the excrescence on the
big wedding-cake house of a Bonanza king. Beyond the hills rose the
slopes of the mountains, with their mighty redwoods, their dark
untrodden aisles, their vast primeval silences. Magdalena was thankful
that Nature had not ceased to be beautiful, and pressed her hands
against her heart to stifle its demand; Nature commands union, and has
no sympathy for aching solitude.

Meanwhile Don Roberto was recovering rapidly. From the hour that he
could walk briskly about the garden his voluble irascibility left him,
and he reverted to something more than his old taciturnity; he rarely
opened his mouth except to put the plainest of food into it, even to
speak to Mr. Polk. His brows were lowered constantly over heavy brooding
eyes; his lips seemed set with a spring. When he finally addressed his
wife, it was to tell her that she must manage with one butler and one
housemaid. Coincidently he dismissed two of the gardeners and commanded
the one retained, and Dick, to plant in a part of the lawns that there
might be less water used. Himself came from town every evening and
worked in the garden for two hours, besides aris