d a secular order,
"dedicating her life to the instructions of the young and the
consolation of the sick," and finally entered the Dominican sisterhood,
where she gave the remainder of her life to the heroic and self-effacing
service of her order. Not until late in life did she have the
consolation of learning--and then quite by accident--that her lover
had not been false to her, but had died of a fall from his horse on his
mission to win her. Long years afterward she died, in 1857, at the
convent of St. Catherine; and today, while he sleeps beneath a Greek
cross in the wilds of Siberia, she is at rest beneath a Roman cross in
the little Dominican cemetery at Benicia, across the Bay[13].

This history is true. These old walls were witnesses to part of it.
These hills and dales were part of the setting for their love-drama. One
picnic was taken by boat to what is now called the Island of Belvedere
yonder. One horseback outing was taken to the picturesque canyon of San
Andres, so named by Captain Rivera and Father Palou in 1774. Gertrude
Atherton has given us the novel, and Bret Harte has sung the poem,
founded upon it[14].

When we think of the love stories that have survived the ages, Alexander
and Thais, Pericles and Aspasia, Antony and Cleopatra, and all the rest
of them--some of them a narrative unfit to handle with tongs--shall we
let this local story die? Shall not America furnish a newer and purer
standard? If to such a standard Massachusetts is to contribute the
Courtship of Miles Standish, may not California contribute the Courtship
of Rezanov? You men of this army post have a peculiar right to proclaim
this sentiment; in such an enlistment you, of all men, would have the
right to unsheathe a flaming sword. For this memory of the comandante's
daughter is yours--yours to cherish, yours to protect. In the barracks
and on parade, at the dance and in the field, this "one sweet human
fancy" belongs to this Presidio; and no court-martial nor departmental
order can ever take it from you.

[Translation of Baptismal Record.]

931. Maria Concepcion Marcela Argueello, Female Spanish Infant 65.

On the 26th day of February of the year 1791, in the church of this
Mission of our Holy Patron St. Francis, I solemnly baptized a girl born
on the 19th day of the said month, the legitimate daughter of Don Jose
Argueello, lieutenant-captain, and commander of the neighboring royal
presidio, a native of the city of Qu