CHAPTER I.

"Welcome her, all things youthful and sweet,

Scatter the blossoms under her feet!"

The house was a large square building, simple and hospitable in

appearance. A wide veranda ran about the four sides, heavily draped by

climbing roses and clematis. There were indisputable evidences that

visitors were expected. Old Tip, the dog, knew it as well as everybody

else about the house. He had been routed out from his favorite spot on

the sunny side of the piazza, by Ah Lam, who had given him a shower-bath

of water and soap-suds, because he did not move away to make room for

the scrubbing-brush which the white-clad Celestial plied vigorously.

From earliest morning the inhabitants of the simple house had been

busied in making it ready. The very kittens which played about the

steps of the piazza had licked an extra gloss upon their shining coats

in honor of the expected guest. Only Tip, the old hunting-dog, the

spoiled child of the household, showed no interest in what was going on,

and with a cynical growl trotted off to the woods behind the house,

where he might sleep safe from all fear of interruption.

From the wide doorway, which stood hospitably open, stepped a lady. At

the first sight of Barbara Deering, strangers were always strongly

impressed with the indisputable fact that she was above and before all

else a lady. A second look,--and people were sure to take one,--and it

appeared that she was a young lady and a beautiful one. She was tall,

above the height of ordinary women, and her carriage was remarkably

erect and commanding. She walked with a quick, light step to the edge

of the piazza, and raising one hand to shade her eyes from the rays of

the setting sun, stood looking out across the wide garden. Her figure

was like that of a Greek Diana, muscular and graceful, indicating great

strength and endurance. The limbs were rounded but not languidly, as

one saw by the arm, from which the sleeve had slipped back: it was

white, firm, and hard. Her hands were large and shapely, the tips of

the fingers red, and the texture of the skin showed that they were used

to other work than that of the broidery-frame. Her head, with its crown

of pretty, curling flaxen hair, was habitually held rather high, and her

face wore an expression in which a certain natural hauteur and

imperiousness seemed at war with a gentleness which was more the result

of education than a natural trait. The forehead was wide and unlined,

the eyes brown and clear, the nose straight, and the mouth small and

rosy. The soft, white woollen gown, with its breast-knot of red roses,

suited the young woman perfectly; and as she stood in the sunset light,

a spray of climbing rose hanging overhead from the roof of the piazza,

she made an unconscious picture of grace and loveliness.

At the sound of a wagon on the driveway a warm flush mantled her cheek

and throat, and stepping to the door of the house she called out in a

sweet, high voice, "Mamma, mamma! they are coming!"

A moment later and a large open vehicle came into sight, drawn by two

swift mules, which were urged forward by the driver, a young man in

whose face the traits of the girl on the piazza were reproduced, but

somewhat roughly. On the seat behind the driver was seen a female

figure closely enveloped in heavy travelling wraps, her features

concealed by a thick veil. As the mules stopped before the entrance, the

young woman on the piazza came forward with both hands outstretched,

saying cordially but half shyly,--

"Dear Millicent, welcome to San Rosario! Are you very, very tired? Let

me help you out."

So saying, Barbara Deering almost lifted the new arrival from the wagon,

and with her strong arm supported her to a chair.

"Thank you so much!" said the new-comer, speaking with a slightly

foreign accent, and lifting her veil; "and you are Barbara? I know you

from your picture, only you are much prettier."

"Poor child, you must be terribly tired; you shall come and speak to

mamma, and then you must go directly to your room and lie down. Hal, you

will go down for Millicent's luggage?"

The young man nodded an assent, touched up his steeds, and the wagon

disappeared down the red dusty road. The two young girls entered the

house, Barbara leading the stranger to a large room on the upper story.

In a low chair sat a small woman, with a face which must have once been

beautiful, and which now shone with an expression of simple sincerity

and kindliness. She held out her hand to Millicent, kissed her on both

cheeks, and warmly bade her welcome to San Rosario. Millicent Almsford

acknowledged the greeting with a courteous grace, and immediately after

accepted Barbara's offer to show her to her room.

When the door was shut upon her, and she was for the first time in many

days alone, she seated herself at the window, and leaning her head upon

her hand, remained wrapped in thought. She had travelled from the coast

of the Adriatic Sea to the shores of the Pacific Ocean, with no

companion save her maid and her own painful thoughts. And now the long

journeying was at an end, and she found herself in the far West, in

California, amidst her kindred, all strangers to her save by tradition

and some slight correspondence. She looked about the strange room. It

was exquisitely neat and fresh, with its clean whitewashed walls and new

blue Kidderminster carpet, its black-walnut "bedroom set," and

comfortable lounge, which had been newly covered in her honor. On the

bureau were blue and white mats and cushions, a toilet-set which

Barbara's busy fingers had stolen time to make.

She marked all these little details, not one of which escaped her eyes,

even to the embroidered towel-rack with her initials, and the worked

motto, "Welcome home." Again she looked out from the window over a wide

pleasant orchard, filled with heavily fruited peach and plum trees; over

a garden gay with bright-hued flowers, and beyond to the everlasting

hills which close about the happy valley wherein stands the house of the

San Rosario Ranch. Numbers of oxen and cows were straying over the

hills, with here and there groups of sheep cropping the sun-dried grass

of the hills.

The landscape was a perfect symphony in brown. The round shiny hills

were golden in color; the warm-hued earth in the ploughed fields and the

meadows, whose crop of grass had long since been mowed, was of a deeper

tint. The house stood in an oasis of green. A great hedge of

rose-trees blushing with red blossoms marked the boundary of the

flower-garden, irrigated with great care through the long summer months.

The sun, low-hanging over the hilltops, suddenly dropped from sight; and

as the room grew dim, Millicent shivered slightly, and turning from the

window threw herself on the couch and lay there quite still, too tired

even to weep out the pain and homesickness in her heart. A tap on the

door was followed by the entrance of one of her trunks, brought in by

two strong Chinamen, at whose coppery faces Millicent stared curiously.

Six large boxes were placed in a row and unstrapped by the younger

Chinaman, who, when he had completed his task, approached the stranger

land said in a sympathetic voice, "Me solly you sick; Ah Lam bring

tea-cup?" The white Celestial smiled benignantly and vanished, quickly

reappearing with the promised cup of tea, which proved most grateful to

the girl's tired nerves. The creature's sympathy and attention brought

tears to her eyes; and when Barbara came in a few minutes later, to help

her in unpacking, she found the traces of these tears on Millicent's

cheeks.

"Do not try to dress for tea, dear; you are too tired. Where shall I

find your dressing-case? You must let me take the place of your maid,

now that she has left you so cruelly."

So talking pleasantly, Barbara unpacked the guest's dressing-bag, looked

admiringly at the silver-topped bottles with "M. A." engraven upon them,

the ivory brushes, and all the dainty _et ceteras_ which were

necessities to the foreign girl, with the long white hands and

finger-nails which shone like pale pink conch-pearls.

"Thank you, if you would help me a little to-night, I shall quickly

learn to do for myself. If you will look in that largest trunk, you may

give me whatever gown lies at the top."

Barbara unfolded as she was bid a sea-green cashmere dress, in which the

stranger quickly clad her slender figure. Manifold strings of tiny

seed-pearls she wound about her white throat and wrists, performing all

the details of her dressing with a careful precision which seemed part

of her nature. The pink nails received an extra polish, though the

tea-bell had twice summoned the inmates of the house to the evening

repast. With a peculiarly graceful motion, like the undulation of a

swift but quiet stream, she moved about the room and finally down the

stairway to the dining-room below.

"Millicent, will you sit here, on my right? Hal shall have the pleasure

of occupying the place beside you."

The speaker was the lady whose gentle, firm hand swayed the small realm

of the San Rosario Ranch during the long absence of its master, Mr.

Ralph Almsford.

Mr. Almsford had been a widower for the past ten years. On the death of

his beloved wife, her mother Mrs. Deering had continued at his earnest

request to make his house her home. Her two younger children, Barbara

and Henry Deering, remembered no other home, and it seemed but natural

to them that they should continue to live with their brother-in-law.

The family life was a particularly happy one, and the tie between Ralph

Almsford and the Deerings was closer than that which exists between many

blood relations.

The advent of the young heiress Millicent Almsford, the half-sister of

Ralph, was an event of great importance in the household, and had been

eagerly anticipated by Mrs. Deering and her daughter for several weeks.

Henry Deering--or as he was always called Hal--displayed an absolute

indifference concerning the "strange girl" who was coming to make her

home among them for a year. What Ralph Almsford felt about his guest no

one of the household could divine. He was a quiet, reticent man,

entirely absorbed in his business, which of late had often taken him

from home for months at a time. He had written to his half-sister,

urging her to visit the ranch; and his letter, the first one of the kind

she had ever received, had so moved the girl that she had telegraphed

her departure, and forthwith started on her long journey.

Her brother met her in San Francisco, where they passed one day

together,--a business engagement calling him away on the morrow, as he

hoped for a few days only.

Millicent took the place assigned her by Mrs. Deering, and supper was

enlivened by conversation about the journey she had just achieved, which

she described as the most terrible ordeal that it was possible for a

human being to undergo. The guest was entirely at her ease, though her

position might have been to many people an embarrassing one. Arriving

alone in a household of near connections, who were as yet absolute

strangers to her, and with whom it had been decided that the next year

of her life should be passed, most girls in her place would have

experienced some sensation of awkwardness; but Millicent was entirely

mistress of the situation. She spoke principally to Hal Deering, a

jolly-looking fellow of twenty-five, who puzzled her with the bits of

dialect, perfectly unintelligible to her, which he introduced into his

conversation.

After supper Mrs. Deering led the way into the drawing-room, saying to

her guest,--

"Will you join us at prayers in the library, Millicent? Or would you

prefer waiting here for us?"

"I see that you already know that I am an unorthodox person, Mrs.

Deering. Frankly, I would prefer not coming, if you will allow me.

Being an agnostic, I should hardly be in sympathy with your service. If

you will kindly excuse me, I will await you here."

Millicent's refusal to join the family at their devotions was

accompanied with a smile so exquisite and winning that the offence was

forgiven, although forgiveness had not been asked. Hal, the great

six-foot giant, more than forgave the graceful girl her ungraciousness,

and would have a thousand times preferred remaining with her to joining

his mother and sister.

On being left to herself, Millicent moved to the piano which stood open

near the window, and seating herself let her white fingers stray gently

over the keys. Strange hands were Millicent's, of a whiteness that made

her pale cheek look brown by comparison. The fingers were long and

taper, at the tip of each a drop as of water ready to fall from the pink

digits. The wrists were round and very slender. On the fifth finger of

the left hand she wore a strange, small old ring of an Etruscan pattern,

which had been stripped from the fleshless hand of a princess, whose

sanctuary had been rifled by some nineteenth-century robber of graves.

The setting enclosed a small green intaglio exquisitely carved,

representing a Psyche with new-found wings.

She had a strange, white luminous face whose beauty shone from within

and lit the dark gray eyes with a rare and tender loveliness. The large

mouth was more exquisitely refined than the mere rosebud tininess of

Barbara Deering's. The teeth were very white and perfect, and the veil

of soft, golden bronze hair, in which she could have clothed herself

like Mary in the desert, was deftly massed into a great dusky knot at

the nape of her white neck. Her arms and bosom, veiled by half

transparent draperies, were white as marble from Carrara, and as finely

yet generously chiselled as those of a goddess of Phidias. She was very

tall, though her grace of movement concealed her height; her small feet

in their velvet sandals were not disproportionate to her size. Her

features were beautiful, and her hair and eyes the delight of every

artist who looked upon her. And yet that which made her so remarkable

among women had nothing to do with delicate contours or harmonious

tints. Her body seemed like a screen through which shone a flame, at

times white and gentle, again rosy and passionate. She was like the

twin opals which clasped her girdle, and was as sensitive as they to

every passing influence.

As the words of the ritual, grown to be meaningless to him by their

frequent repetition, fell upon the ears of Henry Deering he heeded them

not, and failed to make the proper responses: other sounds had struck

his ear, and soft, solemn strains of music made an under prayer to the

evening service. To these strange chords his heart made answer, and his

thoughts were raised by them far higher than was usual at that hour,

when it was their wont to run riot over the business in hand for the

next day.

As the family re-entered the drawing-room, Millicent remained seated at

the piano, now striking louder chords, and finally ending the long

rhapsody with a brilliant waltz of Chopin.

"Thank you, dear," said Barbara, as Millicent left the piano; "I am so

glad that you are musical. I find very little sympathy for my music in

the family; we will have great pleasure in practising together. I have

some very good four-hand music."

Soon after, the newly arrived guest bade good-night to the family, and

went to her room accompanied by Barbara.

"She is a little like Ralph," said Mrs. Deering, "only infinitely

handsomer. How did she please you, my son?"

"Is she handsome? I hardly noticed. It was her voice that struck me;

it has the sound of laughing waters. And can't she play, though! I

never heard such music in my life."

"I am very glad for Barbara's sake that she is musical," answered his

mother.

"Yes; I hope that Barbara and Miss Almsford _will_ get on together. But

I have my doubts," said Hal, dubiously pulling his straw-colored

mustache.

This is San Rosario to-day. Shall we go back a hundred years? It has a

history worth a word or two. To one who is familiar with the beautiful

country which lies about the old Mission of San Rosario, it is not a

little strange that the place has as yet no prominence either in history

or literature. Santa Barbara and the Mission Dolores have been

celebrated in prose and verse. San Miguel and San Fernando Rey are not

forgotten; while San Rafael and San Francisco, now grown to be important

cities, will be remembered as long as Plymouth or Manhattan.

The venerable President of the missions of Upper California, Father

Junipero Serra, founded the San Rosario Mission in 1784, the last year

of his life. It is possible that the judgment of the enthusiastic

priest was already failing when he chose this site, for the Mission was

never prosperous, and was abandoned early in the present century. While

standing among the ruins of the old church, it is not difficult to see

in fancy a picturesque scene enacted on the spot a century ago, on the

morning of the consecration of the Mission.

The little band of priests and soldiers have come to the end of their

journey; the pleasant valley set in sheltering green hills has been

chosen for the site of the new Mission. The tall thin figure of Father

Junipero first strikes the eye. In spite of his great age, and the

mortal disease with which he is afflicted, it is his hand that tugs

lustily at the rope which swings the great bronze bell, hung in the arms

of a gigantic redwood. It is he who shouts aloud the summons, "Hear,

hear! all ye Gentiles! come to the holy Church!" Close to the President

stand two priests,--one, a middle-aged man with a head which indicates

great power and a dogged persistence; the other, a delicate looking

youth with the face of an enthusiast, beautiful and dreamy. The handful

of soldiers who serve the Fathers as an escort are making fast the

slight church tent which they have just set up. From the neighboring

thicket the cries of the startled birds mingle with the earnest tones of

Father Junipero and the deep notes of the bronze bell. Hardly less

timorous than the wood creatures are the Indians, who peer cautiously

from behind the great trees at the strange spectacle before them. They

are invited to draw near, and the bolder ones come close to the

black-robed figures, and stare curiously at the simple ceremonials with

which the ground is consecrated to the service of the heavenly kingdom.

Through the indefatigable energy of the President and the two priests,

the few buildings of the Mission were completed within a year. The

adobe church was unusually large and well built, as one can see to-day.

The tower, the base of which is strongly fortified, is still standing,

though the roof of the church has long since fallen to the earthen

floor. Little trace now remains of the less important buildings, for

the Mission was abandoned thirty years after its establishment, and the

property passed into the hands of its present owner, Mr. Ralph Almsford,

some fifteen years before the opening of our story.

A century has elapsed since that day when the Fathers planted the cross

amidst the stately aisles of madrone trees; the Mission is now almost

forgotten, but the San Rosario Ranch is well known for its famous breed

of cattle, and for its fine dairy, which supplies the San Francisco

market with choice butter and cream.

The two priests--he of the hard-favored countenance, and he of the

gentle eyes--lie side by side at the foot of the crumbling altar. The

Indians who were reclaimed by them from barbarism have gone to their

happy hunting-grounds, and the brilliant future prophesied by Father

Junipero is proven to be a dream and nothing more.