t by the winter rains. There were the usual
deep gullies and trenches, half-filled with water, in the fields and
along the road, but there were ominous embankments and ridges of
freshly turned soil, and a scattered fringe of timbers following a
cruel, undeviating furrow on the broad grazing lands of the Mision.
But it was not until he had crossed the arroyo that he felt the full
extent of the late improvements. A quick rumbling in the distance, a
light flash of steam above the willow copse, that drifted across the
field on his right, and he knew that the railroad was already in
operation. Captain Carroll reined in his frightened charger, and
passed his hand across his brow with a dazed sense of loss. He had
been gone only four months--yet he already felt strange and forgotten.

It was with a feeling of relief that he at last turned from the
high-road into the lane. Here everything was unchanged, except that
the ditches were more thickly strewn with the sodden leaves of fringing
oaks and sycamores. Giving his horse to a servant in the court-yard,
he did not enter the patio, but, crossing the lawn, stepped upon the
long veranda. The rain was dripping from its eaves and striking a
minute spray from the vines that clung to its columns; his footfall
awoke a hollow echo as he passed, as if the outer shell of the house
were deserted; the formal yews and hemlocks that in summer had relieved
the dazzling glare of six months' sunshine had now taken gloomy
possession of the garden, and the evening shadows, thickened by rain,
seemed to lie in wait at every corner. The servant, who had, with
old-fashioned courtesy, placed the keys and the "disposition" of that
wing of the house at his service, said that Dona Maria would wait upon
him in the salon before dinner. Knowing the difficulty of breaking the
usual rigid etiquette, and trusting to the happy intervention of
Maruja--though here, again, custom debarred him from asking for her--he
allowed the servant to remove his wet overcoat, and followed him to the
stately and solemn chamber prepared for him. The silence and gloom of
the great house, so grateful and impressive in the ardent summer, began
to weigh upon him under this shadow of an overcast sky. He walked to
the window and gazed out on the cloister-like veranda. A melancholy
willow at an angle of the stables seemed to be wringing its hands in
the rising wind. He turned for relief to the dim fire that flickered
like a