e. She
knew her Austin Dobson by heart. She read poems, essays, the ideas
of the seminary at Marysville persisting in her mind. "Marius the
Epicurean," "The Essays of Elia," "Sesame and Lilies," "The Stones of
Venice," and the little toy magazines, full of the flaccid banalities of
the "Minor Poets," were continually in her hands.

When Presley had appeared on Los Muertos, she had welcomed his arrival
with delight. Here at last was a congenial spirit. She looked forward
to long conversations with the young man on literature, art, and ethics.
But Presley had disappointed her. That he--outside of his few chosen
deities--should care little for literature, shocked her beyond words.
His indifference to "style," to elegant English, was a positive affront.
His savage abuse and open ridicule of the neatly phrased rondeaux and
sestinas and chansonettes of the little magazines was to her mind
a wanton and uncalled-for cruelty. She found his Homer, with its
slaughters and hecatombs and barbaric feastings and headstrong passions,
violent and coarse. She could not see with him any romance, any poetry
in the life around her; she looked to Italy for that. His "Song of the
West," which only once, incoherent and fierce, he had tried to explain
to her, its swift, tumultous life, its truth, its nobility and savagery,
its heroism and obscenity had revolted her.

"But, Presley," she had murmured, "that is not literature."

"No," he had cried between his teeth, "no, thank God, it is not."

A little later, one of the stablemen brought the buggy with the team of
bays up to the steps of the porch, and Harran, putting on a different
coat and a black hat, took himself off to Guadalajara. The morning was
fine; there was no cloud in the sky, but as Harran's buggy drew away
from the grove of trees about the ranch house, emerging into the open
country on either side of the Lower Road, he caught himself looking
sharply at the sky and the faint line of hills beyond the Quien Sabe
ranch. There was a certain indefinite cast to the landscape that to
Harran's eye was not to be mistaken. Rain, the first of the season, was
not far off.

"That's good," he muttered, touching the bays with the whip, "we can't
get our ploughs to hand any too soon."

These ploughs Magnus Derrick had ordered from an Eastern manufacturer
some months before, since he was dissatisfied with the results obtained
from the ones he had used hitherto, which were of local make. Howeve