sigh again, not with a woman's bitterness,--she had lived too
little for that,--but with a girl's romantic sadness. Why had she been
defrauded of her birthright? She recalled something Colonel Belmont had
once said about "cross-breeding being death on beauty in nine cases out
of ten." Why could not her father have married another woman of his
race? She dismissed these reflections as unfilial and wicked, and
returned to her work; but it was only to bite the end of her pen-holder
and dream.

Meanwhile Trennahan fell asleep and dreamed that his Menlo house caught
fire one night and that all the maidens of his new acquaintance came in
a body to extinguish the flames. Miss Montgomery played a hose
considerably larger round than her neck, with indomitable energy and
persistence. Miss Brannan, in a dashing red cap and jacket, danced like
a bacchante on the roof, albeit manipulating large buckets of water.
Mrs. Washington was also there, and, swinging in a hammock, encouraged
the workers with her characteristic optimism expressed in picturesque
American. Magdalena, in a suit of her father's old clothes, was handing
his books through the library window to Miss Folsom. Miss Geary was
scrambling up the ladder, a hose coiled about her like a python. The
leader of the company stood on the roof directly above the front door,
giving orders with imperious voice and gesture. But although the flames
leaped high about her, starting the leaves of a neighbouring tree into
sharp relief, he could not see her face.

XVIII

Trennahan did not see Magdalena until luncheon. She came in late, and
her manner was a shade colder and more reserved than usual. After much
excogitation, she had decided to leave the roses in her hair, but it had
taken her ten minutes to summon up courage to go downstairs.

He understood perfectly, and his soul grinned. Then he sighed. Youth had
been very sweet to him, all manifestations of femininity in a woman very
dear. There were four long windows in the dining-room, but the roof of
the verandah, the thick vines springing from pillar to pillar, the
lilac-trees and willows just beyond, chastened the light in the room.
Magdalena looked almost pretty, with her air of proud reserve, the roses
nestling in her dark hair. Ten years ago he might have loved her,
perhaps, in spite of her complexion.

Mrs. Yorba did not notice the roses. Her mind was blind with wrath: the
cream sauce of the chicken was curdled. During