s left her?

"She lived in Santa Barbara for many years, in the house of Don Jose de
la Guerra--in that end room of the east wing. She had many relations, it
is true, but Concha was always human and liked relations better when she
was not surrounded by them. Although she never joined in any of the
festivities of that gay time she was often with the Guerra family and
seemed happy enough to take up her old position as Beata among the
Indians and children, until they built a school for her in Monterey. How
we used to wonder if she ever thought of Rezanov any more. From the day
the two years were over she never mentioned his name, and everybody
respected her reserve, even her parents. And she grew more and more
reserved with the years, never speaking of herself at all, except just
after her return from Mexico. But somehow we knew. And did not the very
life she had chosen express it? Even the Church may not reach the secret
places of the soul, and who knows what heaven she may have found in
hers? And now? I think purgatory is not for Concha, and he was not bad
as men go, and has had time to do his penance. It is true the Church
tells us there is no marrying in heaven--but, well, perhaps there is a
union for mated spirits of which the Church knows nothing. You saw her
expression in her coffin.

"Well! The time arrived when we had a convent. Bishop Alemany came in
1850, and in the first sermon he preached in Santa Barbara--I think it
was his first in California--he announced that he wished to found a
convent. He was a Dominican, but one order was as another to Concha; she
had never been narrow in anything. As soon as the service was over,
before he had time to leave the church, she went to him and asked to be
the first to join. He was glad enough, for he knew of her and that no
one could fill his convent as rapidly as she. Therefore was she the
first nun, the first to take holy vows, in our California. For a
little, the convent was in the old Hartnell house in Monterey, but Don
Manuel Ximeno had built a great hotel while believing, with all the
rest, that Monterey would be the capital of the new California as of the
old, and he was glad to sell it to the Bishop. We were delighted--of
course I followed when Concha told me it was my vocation--that the
Americans preferred Yerba Buena.

"Concha took her first vows in April, soon after the Bishop's arrival,
choosing the name Sister Maria, Dominica. On the 13th of April 1852 she