spring, a fluttering canopy of pink and white petals, which, seen from
the hills on the opposite side of the river, looked as if rosy sunrise
clouds had fallen, and become tangled in the tree-tops. On either hand
stretched away other orchards,--peach, apricot, pear, apple pomegranate;
and beyond these, vineyards. Nothing was to be seen but verdure or
bloom or fruit, at whatever time of year you sat on the Senora's south
veranda.

A wide straight walk shaded by a trellis so knotted and twisted with
grapevines that little was to be seen of the trellis wood-work, led
straight down from the veranda steps, through the middle of the garden,
to a little brook at the foot of it. Across this brook, in the shade
of a dozen gnarled old willow-trees, were set the broad flat stone
washboards on which was done all the family washing. No long dawdling,
and no running away from work on the part of the maids, thus close to
the eye of the Senora at the upper end of the garden; and if they had
known how picturesque they looked there, kneeling on the grass, lifting
the dripping linen out of the water, rubbing it back and forth on the
stones, sousing it, wringing it, splashing the clear water in each
other's faces, they would have been content to stay at the washing day
in and day out, for there was always somebody to look on from above.
Hardly a day passed that the Senora had not visitors. She was still
a person of note; her house the natural resting-place for all who
journeyed through the valley; and whoever came, spent all of his time,
when not eating, sleeping, or walking over the place, sitting with the
Senora on the sunny veranda. Few days in winter were cold enough, and
in summer the day must be hot indeed to drive the Senora and her friends
indoors. There stood on the veranda three carved oaken chairs, and a
carved bench, also of oak, which had been brought to the Senora for safe
keeping by the faithful old sacristan of San Luis Rey, at the time of
the occupation of that Mission by the United States troops, soon after
the conquest of California. Aghast at the sacrilegious acts of the
soldiers, who were quartered in the very church itself, and amused
themselves by making targets of the eyes and noses of the saints'
statues, the sacristan, stealthily, day by day and night after night,
bore out of the church all that he dared to remove, burying some
articles in cottonwood copses, hiding others in his own poor little
hovel, until he had