e doctor soon comes."

"You may not have intended--but you have taught me to think for myself.
And I have seen others besides M. de Rezanov--the flower of California
and more than one fine gentleman from Mexico. I will have none of
them. I will marry the man of my choice or no one. It may be that I
know naught of love. If you wish, you may think that my choice of a
husband is determined by ambition, that I am dazzled with the thought
of court life in St. Petersburg, of being the consort of a great and
wealthy noble. It matters not. Love or ambition, I shall marry this
Russian or I shall never marry at all."

"Mother of God! Mother of God!" Don Jose's face was purple. The
veins swelled in his neck. He was the more wroth because he recognized
his own daughter and his own handiwork, because he saw that he
confronted a Toledo blade, not a woman's brittle will. Concha regarded
him calmly.

"If you refuse your consent you will lose me in another way. I may not
be able to marry as I wish, but I will have no worldly alternative. I
shall join the Third Order of the Franciscans, and enter a convent as
soon as one is built in California. To that you cannot withhold your
consent, or they no longer would call you El santo."

Don Jose leaped from his chair. "Go to your room!" he thundered. "And
do not dare to leave it without my permission--"

But Concha sprang forward and flung herself upon his neck. She rubbed
her warm elastic cheek against his own in the manner he loved, and
softened her voice. "Papacito mio, papacito mio," she pleaded. "Thou
wilt not refuse thy Concha the only thing she has ever begged of thee.
And I beg! I beg! Papa mio! I love him! I love him!" And she broke
into wild weeping and kissed him frantically, while Rezanov who had
followed her plan of attack and resistance in silent admiration, did
not know whether he should himself be moved to tears or further admire.

Don Jose pushed her from him with a heavy sob and hastily left the
room, oblivious in the confusion of his faculties of the boon he
conferred on the lovers. Concha dried her eyes, but her face was
deathly pale. It had not been all acting, by any means, and she was
beginning to feel the tyranny of sleepless nights; and the joy and
wonder of the morning had left her with but a remnant of endurance for
the domestic battleground.

"Go," she whispered, as he took her in his arms. "Return for the dance
to-night as if nothin