elvet and gold embroidery, moved like a pageant to the
head of her table, where she remained like a sacerdotal effigy, not
even the presence of the practical Scotchman at her side could remove
the prevailing sense of restraint. For a while the conversation of the
relatives might have been brought with them in their antique vehicles
of fifty years ago, so faded, so worn, and so springless it was.
General Pico related the festivities at Monterey, on the occasion of
the visit of Sir George Simpson early in the present century, of which
he was an eyewitness, with great precision of detail. Don Juan
Estudillo was comparatively frivolous, with anecdotes of Louis
Philippe, whom he had seen in Paris. Far-seeing Pedro Guitierrez was
gloomily impressed with a Mongolian invasion of California by the
Chinese, in which the prevailing religion would be supplanted by
heathen temples, and polygamy engrafted on the Constitution. Everybody
agreed however, that the vital question of the hour was the settlement
of land titles--Americans who claimed under preemption and the native
holders of Spanish grants were equally of the opinion.

In the midst of this the musical voice of Maruja was heard saying,
"What is a tramp?"

Raymond, on her right, was ready but not conclusive.

A tramp, if he could sing, would be a troubadour; if he could pray,
would be a pilgrim friar--in either case a natural object of womanly
solicitude. But as he could do neither, he was simply a curse.

"And you think that is not an object of womanly solicitude? But that
does not tell me WHAT he is."

A dozen gentlemen, swept in the radius of those softly-inquiring eyes,
here started to explain. From them it appeared that there was no such
thing in California as a tramp, and there were also a dozen varieties
of tramp in California.

"But is he always very uncivil?" asked Maruja.

Again there were conflicting opinions. You might have to shoot him on
sight, and you might have him invariably run from you. When the
question was finally settled, Maruja was found to have become absorbed
in conversation with some one else.

Amita, a taller copy of Maruja, and more regularly beautiful, had built
up a little pile of bread crumbs between herself and Raymond, and was
listening to him with a certain shy, girlish interest that was as
inconsistent with the serene regularity of her face as Maruja's
self-possessed, subtle intelligence was incongruous to her youthful
fig