ig head."
"As to that woman--a devilish handsome woman too!--well, everybody knew
that Spencer always had a weakness that way, and he would say--but if
she didn't care to hear any more about her--well, perhaps she was
right. That was the best way to take it." Sitting before her,
prosperous, weak, egotistical, incompetent, unavailable, and yet filled
with a vague kindliness of intent, Mrs. Tucker loathed him. A sickening
perception of her own weakness in sending for him, a new and aching
sense of her utter isolation and helplessness, seemed to paralyze her.

"Nat'rally you feel bad," he continued, with the large air of a
profound student of human nature. "Nat'rally, nat'rally you're kept in
an uncomfortable state, not knowing jist how you stand. There ain't but
one thing to do. Jist rise up, quiet like, and get a divorce agin
Spencer. Hold on! There ain't a judge or jury in California that
wouldn't give it to you right off the nail, without asking questions.
Why, you'd get it by default if you wanted to; you'd just have to walk
over the course! And then, Belle," he drew his chair still nearer her,
"when you've settled down again--well!--I don't mind renewing that
offer I once made ye, before Spencer ever came round ye--I don't mind,
Belle, I swear I don't! Honest Injin! I'm in earnest, there's my hand."

Mrs. Tucker's reply has not been recorded. Enough that half an hour
later Mr. Weaver appeared in the courtyard with traces of tears on his
foolish face, a broken falsetto voice, and other evidence of mental and
moral disturbance. His cordiality and oracular predisposition remained
sufficiently to enable him to suggest the magical words "Blue Grass"
mysteriously to Concha, with an indication of his hand to the erect
figure of her pale mistress in the doorway, who waved to him a silent
but half compassionate farewell.

At about this time a slight change in her manner was noticed by the few
who saw her more frequently. Her apparently invincible girlishness of
spirit had given way to a certain matronly seriousness. She applied
herself to her household cares and the improvement of the _hacienda_
with a new sense of duty and a settled earnestness, until by degrees
she wrought into it not only her instinctive delicacy and taste, but
part of her own individuality. Even the rude _rancheros_ and tradesmen
who were permitted to enter the walls in the exercise of their calling
began to speak mysteriously of the beauty of this gard