the greed of the States and England had forced us into
the weary drudgery of the earth, and made us the slaves of misbegotten
progress.

We had our church then and dear old Padre Andreas at San Anselmo, and,
my dear friends from the States, we also had cockles from Tomales, which
were eaten with relish on the beach at Sausalito, just where George the
Greek's is now, though then there was only a little hut kept by a man
whom we called Victor--and we had feasts and fasts so well arranged,
that dyspepsia was unknown.

One day when I had been on a long tramp through the woods, gathering
mushrooms, I came home tired and hungry, and found our old housekeeper,
Catalina, smiling complacently, as she sat on the stepping block by the
kitchen door, rolling tamales for supper. "Oh! Master Carlos," she
cried, "we have had much to worry us to-day. Look at those poor, little
ducks all dead and the mother hen also."

"Who killed them, Catalina?" I asked in astonishment, as I saw my pet
brood of ducks and their over careful mother lying dead in the grass.

"I did," she replied, "and it was time that something was done. Madre
Moreno has been busy again. The cows gave bloody milk last Friday, and
to-day, while I was sorting some herbs, the hen and her brood began to
act mysteriously, to tumble about as Victor might, after too much wine.
All at once I saw the cause, Madre Moreno had bewitched them, and in
three minutes I had cut all their throats and have given the wicked
woman a lesson."

"Catalina! Catalina!" I cried, "how can you be so cruel and
superstitious?" Her face lighted up with supreme contempt for me, but
she said nothing more. On the ground about her were bits of leaves which
I recognized as nightshade and henbane, which could well account for the
actions of the late hen and ducklings.

"What are these?" I asked.

"Little Pablo brought them for dinner; he thought they were mustard, but
they were not, so I threw them away."

"Poor ducks and poor Catalina," was all that I could say, and went
laughing into the house, while she muttered to herself about the
ignorance of the new generation.

My home was, and is a beautiful one, low and long, with all the rooms
opening on the broad veranda; it is part of adobe and part of wood, the
sides being covered with a network of fuchsia, heliotrope and jasmine
reaching to the eaves of the brown tile roof; a broad, branching fig
tree is in the little court before it, and a clump of