in her harsh but strong old voice.
"I have permission. I must talk of Concha tonight or I should burst. It
is not for nothing one keeps silent for years and years. I at least am
still human. And you loved her the best and have spoiled your pretty
face with weeping. You must not do that again, for the young love a
pretty nun and will follow her into the one true life on earth far
sooner than an ugly old phiz like mine."

Sister Maria, indeed, retained not an index of the beauty with which
tradition accredited her youth. She was a stout unwieldy old woman with
a very red face covered half over with black down, and in the bright
moonlight Teresa could see the three long hairs that stood out straight
from a mole above her mouth and scratched the girls when she kissed
them. Tonight her nose was swollen and her eyes looked like appleseeds.
Teresa hastily composed her features and registered a vow that in her
old age she would look like Sister Dominica, not like that. She had
heard that Concha, too, had been frivolous in her youth, and had not she
herself a tragic bit of a story? True, her youthful love-tides had
turned betimes from the grave beside the Mission Dolores to the lovely
nun and the God of both, and she had heard that Dona Concha had proved
her fidelity to a wonderful Russian throughout many years before she
took the veil. Perhaps--who knew?--her more conformable pupil might have
restored the worthless to her heart before he was knifed in the full
light of day on Montgomery Street by one from whom he had won more than
thousands the night before; perhaps have consoled herself with another
less eccentric, had not Sister Dominica sought her at the right moment
and removed her from the temptations of the world. Well, never mind, she
could at least be a good nun and an amiable instructor of youth, and if
she never looked like a living saint she would grow soberer and nobler
with the years and take care that she grew not stout and red.

For a time Sister Maria did not speak, but walked rapidly and heavily up
and down the path, dragging her companion with her and staring out at
the beauty of the night. But suddenly she slackened her pace and burst
into speech.

"Ay yi! Ay de mi! To think that it is nearly half a century--forty-two
years to be precise--for will it not be 1858 in one more week?--since
Rezanov sailed out through what Fremont has called 'The Golden Gate'!
And forty-one in March since he died--not from the