n the midst of one of his most
prolific grain fields, as a grim return to that nature he was
impoverishing, with neither mark nor monument to indicate the spot; and
that even the temporary mound above him should, at the fitting season
of the year, be leveled with the rest of the field by the obliterating
plowshares. A grave was accordingly dug about a quarter of a mile from
his office amidst a "volunteer" crop so dense that the large space mown
around the narrow opening, to admit of the presence of the multitude,
seemed like a golden amphitheatre.

A distinguished clergyman from San Francisco officiated.

A man of tact and politic adaptation, he dwelt upon the blameless life
of the deceased, on his practical benefit for civilization in the
county, and even treated his grim Pantheism in the selection of his
grave as a formal recognition of the text, "dust to dust." He paid a
not ungrateful compliment to the business associates of the deceased,
and, without actually claiming in the usual terms "a continuance of
past favors" for their successors, managed to interpolate so strong a
recommendation of the late Doctor's commercial projects as to elicit
from Aladdin the expressive commendation that his sermon was "as good
as five per cent. in the stock."

Maruja, who had been standing near the carriage, languidly silent and
abstracted even under the tender attentions of Carroll, suddenly felt
the consciousness of another pair of eyes fixed upon her. Looking up,
she was surprised to find herself regarded by the man she had twice
met, once as a tramp and once as a wayfarer at the fonda, who had
quietly joined a group not far from her. At once impressed by the idea
that this was the first time that he had really looked at her, she felt
a singular shyness creeping over her, until, to her own astonishment
and indignation, she was obliged to lower her eyes before his gaze. In
vain she tried to lift them, with her old supreme power of fascination.
If she had ever blushed, she felt she would have done so now. She knew
that her face must betray her consciousness; and at last she--Maruja,
the self-poised and all-sufficient goddess--actually turned, in
half-hysterical and girlish bashfulness, to Carroll for relief in an
affected and exaggerated absorption of his attentions. She scarcely
knew that the clergyman had finished speaking, when Raymond approached
them softly from behind. "Pray don't believe," he said, appealingly,
"th