Rezanov. But the
rest of her family, the relations, the friends, the young men--the
caballeros! They went in a body you might say to Don Jose and demanded
that Concha, the most beautiful and fascinating and clever girl in New
Spain, should come back to the world where she belonged,--be given in
marriage. But Concha had always ruled Don Jose, and all the protests
went to the winds. And William Sturgis--the young Bostonian who lived
with us for so many years? I have not told you of him, and your mother
was too young to remember. Well, never mind. He would have taken Concha
from California, given her just a little of what she would have had as
the wife of Rezanov--not in himself; he was as ugly as my whiskers; but
enough of the great world to satisfy many women, and no one could deny
that he was good and very clever. But to Concha he was a brother--no
more. Perhaps she did not even take the trouble to refuse him. It was a
way she had. After a while he went home to Boston and died of the
climate. I was very sorry. He was one of us.

"And her intellect? Concha put it to sleep forever. She never read
another book of travel, of history, biography, memoirs, essays,
poetry--romance she had never read, and although some novels came to
California in time she never opened them. It was peace she wanted, not
the growing mind and the roving imagination. She brought her
conversation down to the level of the humblest, and perhaps--who
knows?--her thoughts. At all events, although the time came when she
smiled again, and was often gay when we were all together in the
family--particularly with the children, who came very fast, of
course--well, she was then another Concha, not that brilliant
dissatisfied ambitious girl we had all known, who had thought the
greatest gentleman from the Viceroy's court not good enough to throw
gold at her feet when she danced El Son.

"There were changes in her life. In 1814 Don Jose was made Gobernador
Propietario of Lower California. He took all of his unmarried children
with him, and Concha thought it her duty to go. They lived in Loreto
until 1821. But Concha never ceased to pray that she might return to
California--we never looked upon that withered tongue of Mexico as
California; and when Don Jose died soon after his resignation, and her
mother went to live with her married daughters, Concha returned with the
greatest happiness she had known, I think, since Rezanov went. Was not
California all that wa