he return?"

Elena Castro shook her wise head. She was nearly twenty, and four
years of matrimony had made her sceptical of man's capacity for
romance. "Two years are long, and he will see many girls, and become
one again of a life that is always more brilliant than our sun in May.
His eyes will be dazzled, his mind distracted, full to the brim. To
sit at table with the Tsar, to talk with him alone in his cabinet, to
have for the asking audience of the Pope of Rome and the King of Spain!
Ay yi! Ay yi! Perhaps he will be made a prince when he returns to St.
Petersburg and all the beautiful princesses will want to marry him.
Can he remember this poor little California, and even our lovely
Concha? I doubt! Valgame Dios, I doubt!"

"Concha has always been too fortunate," said Rafaella with a touch of
spite, for years of waiting had tried her temper and the sun always
freckled her nose. The flower of California stood on the corridor of
the Mission and before the church awaiting the guest of honor and his
escort. A mass was to be said in behalf of the departing guests; the
Juno would sail with the turn of the afternoon tide. Men and women were
in their gayest finery, an exotic mass of color against the rough
white-washed walls, chattering as vivaciously as if the burden of their
conversation were not regret for the Chamberlain and his gay young
lieutenants. Concha, alone, wore no color; her frock was white, her
mantilla black. She stood somewhat apart, but although she was pale
she commanded her eyes to dwell absently on the shifting sand far down
the valley, her haughty Spanish profile betraying nothing of the
despair in her soul.

"Yes, Concha has always been too fortunate," repeated Rafaella. "Why
should she be chosen for such a destiny--to go to the Russian court and
wear a train ten yards long of red velvet embroidered with gold, a
white veil spangled with gold, a headdress a foot high set so thick
with jewels her head will ache for a week--Madre de Dios! And we stay
here forever with white walls, horsehair furniture, Baja California
pearls and three silk dresses a year!"

"No one in all Russia will look so grand in court dress as our
Conchita," said Elena loyally. "But I doubt if it is the dress and the
state she thinks of losing to-day. She will not talk even to me of
him-- Ay yi! she grows more reserved every day, our Concha!--except to
say she will wed him when he returns, and that I know, for did