m's length, said in her quick vivid way, and in the queer
pronunciation of her old life, which she fell into when unduly excited:

"That's the poison plant you said would kill me. I'll go with the
play-actors, or I'll eat this and die here. I don't care which. I won't
stay here, where they hate and despise me! Neither would you let me, if
you didn't hate and despise me too!"

The passionate little breast heaved, and two big tears peeped over the
edge of Mliss's eyelids, but she whisked them away with the corner of
her apron as if they had been wasps.

"If you lock me up in jail," said Mliss, fiercely, "to keep me from the
play-actors, I'll poison myself. Father killed himself--why shouldn't
I? You said a mouthful of that root would kill me, and I always carry it
here," and she struck her breast with her clenched fist.

The master thought of the vacant plot beside Smith's grave, and of
the passionate little figure before him. Seizing her hands in his and
looking full into her truthful eyes, he said:

"Lissy, will you go with ME?"

The child put her arms around his neck, and said joyfully, "Yes."

"But now--tonight?"

"Tonight."

And, hand in hand, they passed into the road--the narrow road that had
once brought her weary feet to the master's door, and which it seemed
she should not tread again alone. The stars glittered brightly above
them. For good or ill the lesson had been learned, and behind them the
school of Red Mountain closed upon them forever.

THE RIGHT EYE OF THE COMMANDER

The year of grace 1797 passed away on the coast of California in a
southwesterly gale. The little bay of San Carlos, albeit sheltered by
the headlands of the blessed Trinity, was rough and turbulent; its foam
clung quivering to the seaward wall of the Mission garden; the air
was filled with flying sand and spume, and as the Senor Commandante,
Hermenegildo Salvatierra, looked from the deep embrasured window of the
Presidio guardroom, he felt the salt breath of the distant sea buffet a
color into his smoke-dried cheeks.

The Commander, I have said, was gazing thoughtfully from the window of
the guardroom. He may have been reviewing the events of the year now
about to pass away. But, like the garrison at the Presidio, there
was little to review; the year, like its predecessors, had been
uneventful--the days had slipped by in a delicious monotony of simple
duties, unbroken by incident or interruption. The regularly recurri