arried a generation before.

Conscious of his glance, her eyes turned upward and she held out her
hand to him. "Father, mine," she said in English, "you have made the
roses bloom again in mother's cheeks. And in my heart," she added with a
quick, impulsive tenderness.

Robert Windham bent and kissed her wind-tossed hair. "I think another
has usurped me in the latter task." He smiled, although not without a
touch of sadness. "Ah, well, Adrian is a fine young fellow. You need not
blush so furiously."

"I think he comes," said the Senora Anita, and, unconsciously, her arm
went around the girl. "Is not that his high-stepping mare and his
beanpole of a figure riding beside Benito in yon cloud of dust?"

She smiled down at Inez. "Do not mind your mother's jesting--Go now to
smooth your locks and place a rose within them--as I used to do when Don
Roberto came."

Inez rose and made her way into the casa. She heard a clatter of hoofs
and voices. At the sound of one her heart leaped strangely.

"We have famous news," she heard her brother say. "The name of Yerba
Buena has been changed to San Francisco. Here is an account of it in
Brannan's _California Star_." She heard the rustle of a paper then, once
more her brother's voice: "San Francisco!" he pronounced it lovingly.
"Some day it will be a ciudad grande--perhaps even in my time."

"A great city!" repeated his mother. "Thus my father dreamed of it....
But you will pardon us, Don Adrian, for you have other things in mind
than Yerb--than San Francisco's future. See, my little one! Even now she
comes to bid you welcome."

Inez as she joined them gave her hand to Stanley. "Ah, Don Adrian, your
color is high"--her tone was bantering, mock-anxious. "You have not,
perchance, a touch of fever?"

He eyed her hungrily. "If I have," he spoke with that slow gentleness
she loved so well, "it is no fever that requires roots or herbs....
Shall I," he came a little closer, "shall I put a name to it, Senorita?"
His words were for her ears alone. Her eyes smiled into his. "Come, let
us show you the rose garden, Senor Stanley," she said with playful
formality and placed her silk-gloved fingers on his arm.

Senora Windham's hand groped for her husband's. There were tears in her
eyes, but he bent down and kissed them away. "Anita, mia, do not grieve.
He is a good lad."

"It is not that." She hid her face against his shoulder. "It is not
that--"

"I understand," he whispered.

After