rive. The blood flew through her veins, lifting the weight from her
brain. But she repressed the quick smile, and sat still and erect until
he reached the carriage block, when she went to the head of the steps to
meet him.

"Put on your hat," he said, "and let us hide in the woods before
somebody comes to take us for a drive or to invite us to luncheon. I
haven't forgotten our private plans, if you have."

"I had not forgotten, but Tiny and Ila manage everything. I don't like
to refuse when they are so kind."

"You must develop a faculty--or no, leave it to me. I shall gradually
but firmly insist upon having a day or two a week to myself; and Miss
Geary informs me that such unprecedented energy can never last in this
Vale of Sleep; that before a month is over we shall all have settled
down to a chronic state of somnolence from which we shall awaken from
Saturday till Monday only. Then, indeed, will Menlo be the ideal spot of
which I dreamed while you left me to myself on that long day of my
visit."

Her hat was in the hall. She put it on hastily back foremost, and they
walked toward the woods. Suddenly she turned into a side path.

"Let us walk through the orchard," she said. "Then we shall not meet
anyone."

The cherries were gone; but the yellow apricots, the golden pears, the
red peaches and nectarines, the purple plums, hung heavy among the
abundant green, or rotted on the ground. Several poor children were
stealing frankly, filling sacks almost as large as themselves. Don
Roberto had never so far unbent as to give the village people permission
to remove the superfluity of his orchard, but he winked at their
depredations, as they saved him the expense of having it carted away;
his economical graft had never been able to overcome his haughty
aversion to selling the produce of his private estate. Magdalena often
came to the orchard to talk to these children: the poor fascinated her,
and she liked to feel that she was helping them with words and dimes;
but they were not as the poor of whom she had read, nor yet of the fire.
They were tow-headed and soiled of face, but they wore stout boots and
well-made calico frocks, and they were not without dimes of their own.

"Does California seem a little unreal to you?" she asked. "I mean, there
are no great contrasts. The poverty of London must be frightful."

"You ungrateful person, for Heaven's sake reap the advantage of your
birthright and forget the countries that