d of her dinner table, serene,
beautiful, and calm, in her elegant mourning, provokingly inaccessible
in the sweet deliberation of her widowed years; Padre Esteban was at
her side with a local magnate, who had known Peyton and his wife, while
Donna Rosita and a pair of liquid-tongued, childlike senoritas were near
Clarence and Sanderson. To the priest Mrs. Peyton spoke admiringly of
the changes in the rancho and the restoration of the Mission Chapel, and
together they had commended Clarence from the level of their superior
passionless reserve and years. Clarence felt hopelessly young and
hopelessly lonely; the naive prattle of the young girls beside him
appeared infantine. In his abstraction, he heard Mrs. Peyton allude to
the beauty of the night, and propose that after coffee and chocolate
the ladies should put on their wraps and go with her to the old garden.
Clarence raised his eyes; she was not looking at him, but there was
a slight consciousness in her face that was not there before, and
the faintest color in her cheek, still lingering, no doubt, from the
excitement of conversation.

It was a cool, tranquil, dewless night when they at last straggled out,
mere black and white patches in the colorless moonlight. The brilliancy
of the flower-hued landscape was subdued under its passive, pale
austerity; even the gray and gold of the second terrace seemed dulled
and confused. At any other time Clarence might have lingered over this
strange effect, but his eyes followed only a tall figure, in a long
striped burnous, that moved gracefully beside the soutaned priest. As he
approached, it turned towards him.

"Ah! here you are. I just told Father Esteban that you talked of leaving
to-morrow, and that he would have to excuse me a few moments while you
showed me what you had done to the old garden."

She moved beside him, and, with a hesitation that was not unlike a more
youthful timidity, slipped her hand through his arm. It was for the
first time, and, without thinking, he pressed it impulsively to his
side. I have already intimated that Clarence's reserve was at times
qualified by singular directness.

A few steps carried them out of hearing; a few more, and they seemed
alone in the world. The long adobe wall glanced away emptily beside
them, and was lost; the black shadows of the knotted pear-trees were
beneath their feet. They began to walk with the slight affectation of
treading the shadows as if they were patterns