even a lull in the faintly whispering garden around the Demorests' casa
had affected the spirits of its inmates, causing them to wander about
in vague restlessness. Joan had disappeared; Dona Rosita, under an
olive-tree in one of the deserted paths, and attended by the faithful
Ezekiel, had said it was "earthquake weather," and recalled, with a sign
of the cross, a certain dreadful day of her childhood, when el temblor
had shaken down one of the Mission towers. "You shall see it now, as
he have left it so it has remain always," she added with superstitious
gravity.

"That's just the lazy shiftlessness of your folks," responded Ezekiel
with prompt ungallantry. "It ain't no wonder the Lord Almighty hez to
stir you up now and then to keep you goin'."

Dona Rosita gazed at him with simple childish pity. "Poor man; it have
affect you also in the head, this weather. So! It was even so with
the uncle of my father. Hush up yourself, and bring to me the box of
chocolates of my table. I will gif to you one. You shall for one time
have something pleasant on the end of your tongue, even if you must
swallow him after."

Ezekiel grinned. "Ye ain't afraid o' bein' left alone with the ghost
that haunts the garden, Miss Rosita?"

"After YOU--never-r-r."

"I'll find Mrs. Demorest and send her to ye," said Ezekiel,
hesitatingly.

"Eh, to attract here the ghost? Thank you, no, very mooch."

Ezekiel's face contracted until nothing but his bright peering gray eyes
could be seen. "Attract the ghost!" he echoed. "Then you kalkilate that
it's--" he stopped, insinuatingly.

Rosita brought her fan sharply over his knuckles, and immediately opened
it again over her half-embarrassed face. "I comprehend not anything to
'ekalkilate.' WILL you go, Don Fantastico; or is it for me to bring to
you?"

Ezekiel flew. He quickly found the chocolates and returned, but was
disconcerted on arriving under the olive-tree to find Dona Rosita no
longer in the hammock. He turned into a by-path, where an extraordinary
circumstance attracted his attention. The air was perfectly still, but
the leaves of a manzanita bush near the misshapen cactus were slightly
agitated. Presently Ezekiel saw the stealthy figure of a man emerge from
behind it and approach the cactus. Reaching his hand cautiously towards
the plant, the stranger detached something from one of its thorns, and
instantly disappeared. The quick eyes of Ezekiel had seen that it was a
letter, his u