rning which compels retired ship-captains and rovers of all degrees
to buy a farm in their old days, the major, professionally and socially
inured to border strife, sought surcease and Arcadian repose in
ranching.

It was here that Mrs. Randolph, late relict of the late Scipion
L'Hommadieu, devoted herself to bringing up her children after the
extremest of French methods, and in resurrecting a "de" from her own
family to give a distinct and aristocratic character to their name. The
"de Fontanges l'Hommadieu" were, however, only known to their neighbors,
after the Western fashion, by their stepfather's name,--when they were
known at all--which was seldom. For the boy was unpleasantly conceited
as a precocious worldling, and the girl as unpleasantly complacent in
her role of ingenue. The household was completely dominated by Mrs.
Randolph. A punctilious Catholic, she attended all the functions of the
adjacent mission, and the shadow of a black soutane at twilight gliding
through the wild oat-fields behind the ranch had often been mistaken for
a coyote. The peace-loving major did not object to a piety which, while
it left his own conscience free, imparted a respectable religious air to
his household, and kept him from the equally distasteful approaches of
the Puritanism of his neighbors, and was blissfully unconscious that he
was strengthening the antagonistic foreign element in his family with an
alien church.

Meantime, as the repaired buggy was slowly making its way towards his
house, Major Randolph entered his wife's boudoir with a letter which the
San Francisco post had just brought him. A look of embarrassment on his
good-humored face strengthened the hard lines of hers; she felt some
momentary weakness of her natural enemy, and prepared to give battle.

"I'm afraid here's something of a muddle, Josephine," he began with a
deprecating smile. "Mallory, who was coming down here with his daughter,
you know"--

"This is the first intimation I have had that anything has been settled
upon," interrupted the lady, with appalling deliberation.

"However, my dear, you know I told you last week that he thought of
bringing her here while he went South on business. You know, being a
widower, he has no one to leave her with."

"And I suppose it is the American fashion to intrust one's daughters to
any old boon companions?"

"Mallory is an old friend," interrupted the major, impatiently. "He
knows I'm married, and although