yet answered. "What is this love?" she
said rapidly. "I no can understand. I never feel before. Always I laugh
when men say they love me; but I never laugh again. In my heart is
something that shake me like a lion shake what it go to kill, and make
me no care for my mother or my God--and you are a Protestant! I have
love my mother like I have love that cross; and now a man come--a
stranger! a conqueror! a Protestant! an American! And he twist my heart
out with his hands! But I no can help. I love you and I go."

X

The next morning, Dona Eustaquia looked up from her desk as Benicia
entered the room. "I am writing to Alvarado," she said. "I hope to be
the first to tell him the glorious news. Ay! my child, go to thy altar
and pray that the bandoleros may be driven wriggling from the land like
snakes out of a burning field!"

"But, mother, I thought you had learned to like the Gringos."

"I like the Gringos well enough, but I hate their flag! Ay! I will pull
it down with my own hands if Castro and Pico roll Stockton and Fremont
in the dust!"

"I am sorry for that, my mother, for I am going to marry an American
to-day."

Her mother laughed and glanced over the closely written page.

"I am going to marry the Lieutenant Russell at Blandina's house this
morning."

"Ay, run, run. I must finish my letter."

Benicia left the sala and crossing her mother's room entered her own.
From the stout mahogany chest she took white silk stockings and satin
slippers, and sitting down on the floor put them on. Then she opened the
doors of her wardrobe and looked for some moments at the many pretty
frocks hanging there. She selected one of fine white lawn, half covered
with deshalados, and arrayed herself. She took from the drawer of the
wardrobe a mantilla of white Spanish lace, and draped it about her head
and shoulders, fastening it back above one ear with a pink rose. Around
her throat she clasped a string of pearls, then stood quietly in the
middle of the room and looked about her. In one corner was a little
brass bedstead covered with a heavy quilt of satin and lace. The
pillow-cases were almost as fine and elaborate as her gown. In the
opposite corner was an altar with little gold candlesticks and an ivory
crucifix. The walls and floor were bare but spotless. The ugly wardrobe
built into the thick wall never had been empty: Dona Eustaquia's
generosity to the daughter she worshipped was unbounded.

Benicia drew a long hys