on't know. I've never seen her, or General Trednoke either."

"Come to think of it, though, nobody is like you, Grace. Now, will you
be so good as to apologize again?"

"Don't you think you're rather exacting, Harvey?"

However, the apology was finally repeated, and continued, more or less,
during the rest of the voyage; and Grace quite forgot that she had never
made Harvey tell what was really the cause of his coming to California.
But she, on her side, had a secret. She never allowed him to suspect
that the past eighteen months of her life had been passed as employee in
a New York dry-goods store.

CHAPTER III.

General Trednoke's house was built by Spanish missionaries in the
sixteenth century; and in its main features it was little altered in
three hundred years. In a climate where there is no frost, walls of
adobe last as long as granite. The house consisted, practically, of but
one story; for although there were rooms under the roof, they were used
only for storage; no one slept in them. The plan of the building was
not unlike that of a train of railway-cars,--or, it might be more
appropriate to say, of emigrant-wagons. There was a series of rooms,
ranged in a line, access to them being had from a narrow corridor,
which opened on the rear veranda. Several of the rooms also communicated
directly with each other, and, through low windows, gave on the veranda
in front; for the house was merely a comparatively narrow array of
apartments between two broad verandas, where most of the living,
including much of the sleeping, was done.

Logically, there can be nothing uglier than a Spanish-American dwelling
of this type. But, as a matter of fact, they appear seductively
beautiful. The thick white walls acquire a certain softness of tone; the
surface scales off here and there, and cracks and crevices appear. In
a damp country, like England, they would soon become covered with moss;
but moss is not to be had in this region, though one were to offer for
it the price of the silk velvet, triple ply, which so much resembles
it. Nevertheless, there are compensations. The soil is inexhaustibly
fertile, and its fertility expresses itself in the most inveterate
beauty. Such colors and varieties of flowers exist nowhere else, and
they continue all the year round. Climbing vines storm the walls, and
toss their green ladders all over it, for beauty to walk up and down.
Huge jars, standing on the verandas, emit volcanoes of lo