under the foot-hills. But as he entered upon the long level plain, unrelieved by any watercourse, and baked and cracked by the fierce sun into narrow gaping chasms and yawning fissures, he unconsciously began to slacken his pace. Nothing could be more dreary, passionless and resigned than the vast, sunlit, yet joyless waste. It seemed as if it might be some illimitable, desolate sea, beaten flat by the north-westerly gales that spent their impotent fury on its unopposing levels. As far as the eye could reach, its dead monotony was unbroken; even the black cattle that in the clear distance seemed to crawl over its surface, did not animate it; rather by contrast brought into relief its fixed rigidity of outline. Neither wind, sky nor sun wrought any change over its blank, expressionless face. It was the symbol of Patience a hopeless, weary, helpless patience-but a patience that was Eternal.

He had ridden for nearly an hour, when suddenly there seemed to spring up from the earth, a mile away, a dark line of wall, terminating in an irregular, broken outline against the sky. His first impression was that it was the valda or a break of the stiff skirt of the mountain as it struck the level plain. But he presently saw the dull red of tiled roofs over the dark adobe wall, and as he dashed down into the dry bed of a vanished stream and up again on the opposite bank, he passed the low walls of a corral, until then unnoticed, and a few crows, in a rusty, half-Spanish, half-clerical suit, uttered a croaking welcome to the Rancho of the Holy Trinity, as they rose from the ground before him. It was the first sound that for an hour had interrupted the monotonous jingle of his spurs or the hollow beat of his horse's hoofs. And then, after the fashion of the country, he rose slightly in his stirrups, dashed his spurs into the sides of his mustang, swung the long, horse-hair, braided thong of his bridle-rein, and charged at headlong speed upon the dozen lounging, apparently listless vaqueros, who, for the past hour, had nevertheless been watching and waiting for him at the court-yard gate. As he rode toward them, they separated, drew up each side of the gate, doffed their glazed, stiff-brimmed, black sombreros, wheeled, put spurs to their horses, and in another instant were scattered to the four winds. When Arthur leaped to the brick pavement of the court-yard, there was not one in sight.

An Indian servant noiselessly led away his horse. Another peon as mutely led the

way along a corridor over whose low railings
serapes and saddle blankets were hung in a
barbaric confusion of coloring, and entered
a bare-walled ante-room, where another In-
dian-old, gray-headed, with a face like a
wrinkled tobacco leaf-was seated on a low
wooden settle in an attitude of patient
expectancy. To Arthur's active fancy he
seemed to have been sitting there since the
establishment of the Mission, and to have
grown gray in waiting for him. As Arthur
entered he rose, and, with a few grave Span-
ish courtesies, ushered him into a larger and
more elaborately furnished apartment, and
again retired with a bow. Familiar as
Arthur was with these various formalities,
at present they seemed to have an undue
significance, and he
significance, and he turned somewhat
impatiently as a door opened at the other
end of the apartment. At the same moment
a subtile strange perfume-not unlike some
barbaric spice or odorous Indian herb-stole
through the door, and an old woman, brown-
faced, murky-eyed and decrepit, entered
with a respectful courtesy.,

"It is Don Arturo Poinsett ?"
Arthur bowed.

"The Donna Dolores has a little indisposition, and claims your indulgence if she receives you in her own room.”

Arthur bowed assent. "Bueno. This way."

She pointed to the open door. Arthur entered by a narrow passage cut through the thickness of the adobe wall into another room beyond, and paused on the threshold.

Even the gradual change from the glaring sunshine of the court-yard to the heavy shadows of the two rooms he had passed through was not sufficient to accustom his eyes to the twilight of the apartment he now entered. For several seconds he could not distinguish anything but a few dimly outlined objects. By degrees he saw that there was a bed, a prie-dieu, and a sofa against the opposite wall. The scant light of two windows-mere longitudinal slits in the deep walls-at first permitted him only this. Later he saw that the sofa was occupied by a half-reclining figure, whose face was partly hidden by a fan, and the white folds of whose skirt fell in graceful curves to the floor.

"You speak Spanish, Don Arturo?" asked an exquisitely modulated voice from behind the fan, in perfect Castilian.

Arthur turned quickly toward the voice with an indescribable thrill of pleasure in his

nerves.

"A little."

He was usually rather proud of his Spanish, but for once the conventional polite disclaimer was quite sincere.

"Be seated, Don Arturo!"

He advanced to a chair indicated by the old woman within a few feet of the sofa and sat down. At the same instant the reclining figure, by a quick, dexterous movement, folded the large black fan that had partly hidden her features, and turned her face toward him.

Arthur's heart leaped with a sudden throb, and then, as it seemed to him, for a few seconds stopped beating. The eyes that met his were large, lustrous, and singularly beautiful; the features were small, European, and perfectly modeled; the outline of the small face was a perfect oval, but the complexion was of burnished copper! Yet even the next moment he found himself halting among a dozen comparisons-a golden sherry, a faintly dyed meerschaum, an autumn leaf, the inner bark of the madroño. only one thing was he certain-she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen!

Of

It is possible that the Donna read this in his eyes, for she opened her fan again quietly, and raised it slowly before her face. Arthur's eager glance swept down the long curves of her graceful figure to the little foot in the white satin slipper below. Yet her quaint dress, except for its color, might have been taken for a religious habit, and had a hood or cape descending over her shoulders not unlike a nun's.

"You have surprise, Don Arturo," she said, after a pause, "that I have sent for you, after having before consulted you by proxy. Good! But I have changed my mind since then! I have concluded to take no steps for the present toward perfecting the grant."

Sepulvida has forgotten ?" continued Arthur. "Here are, I believe, the points she gave me," he added, and with the habit of a welltrained intelligence, he put before Donna Dolores, in a few well-chosen words, the substance of Mrs. Sepulvida's story. Nor did his manner in the least betray a fact of which he was perpetually cognizant-namely, that his fair client, between the sticks of her fan, was studying his face with more than feminine curiosity. When he paused she said:

"Bueno. That is what I told her." "Is there anything more?"

"Perhaps !"

Arthur folded his arms and looked attentive. Donna Dolores began to go over the sticks of her fan one by one, as if it were a rosary.

"I have become acquainted with some facts in this case which may not interest you as a lawyer, Don Arturo, but which affect me as a woman. When I have told you them, you will tell me who knows?—that they do not alter the legal aspects of mymy father's claim. You will perhaps laugh at me for my resolution. But I have given you so much trouble, that it is only fair you should know that it is not merely caprice that governs me—that you should know why your visit here is a barren one; why youthe great advocate-have been obliged to waste your valuable time with my poor friend, Donna Maria, for nothing."

Arthur was too much pre-occupied to notice the peculiarly feminine significance with which the Donna dwelt upon this latter sentence-a fact that would not otherwise have escaped his keen observation. He slightly stroked his brown mustache, and looked out of the window with masculine patience.

But I

"Have you any newly discovered evidence that makes the issue doubtful ?" he asked.

"No," said Donna Dolores.

"To her who is she?" asked Arthur quietly.

"Pardon! I had forgotten you do not know. Listen. You have heard that this grant is occupied by a man and his wife-a certain Gabriel Conroy. Good! You have

legal title to the land, except through preemption. Good. That is not true, Don Arturo !"

Arthur turned to her in undisguised surprise.

"This is new matter; this is a legal point of some importance."

She

"Who knows?" said Donna Dolores indifferently. "It is not in regard of that that I speak. The claim is this: The Dr. Devarges, who also possesses a grant for the same land, made a gift of it to the sister of this Gabriel. Do you comprehend ?" paused, and fixed her eyes on Arthur. "Perfectly," said Arthur, with his gaze still fixed on the window; "it accounts for the presence of this Gabriel on the land. But is she living? Or, if not, is he her legally constituted heir? That is the question, and-pardon me if I suggest again—a purely legal and not a sentimental question. Was this woman who has disappeared-this sister this sole and only legatee—a married woman-had she a child? Because

that is the heir."

The silence that followed this question was so protracted, that Arthur turned toward Donna Dolores. She had apparently made some sign to her aged waiting-woman, who was bending over her, between Arthur and the sofa. In a moment, however, the venerable handmaid withdrew, leaving them alone.

"You are right, Don Arturo," continued Donna Dolores, behind her fan. "You see that, after all, your advice is necessary, and what I began as an explanation of my folly may be of business importance; who knows? It is good of you to recall me to that. We women are foolish. You are sagacious and prudent. It was well that I saw you!"

Arthur nodded assent, and resumed his professional attitude of patient tolerationthat attitude which the world over has been at once the exasperation and awful admiration of the largely injured client.

"And the sister, the real heiress, is gonedisappeared! No one knows where! All trace of her is lost. But now comes to the surface an impostor! a woman who assumes the character and name of Grace Conroy, the sister!"

"One moment," said Arthur, quietly, "how do you know that it is an impostor? "How-do-I-know-it ?"

"Yes, what are the proofs ?"

"I am told so!"

"Proofs," repeated Donna Dolores, hurriedly. "Is it not enough that she has married this Gabriel, her brother?"

"That is certainly strong moral proofand perhaps legal corroborative evidence," said Arthur, coolly; "but it will not legally estop her proving that she is his sister-if she can do so. But I ask your pardongo on!"

"That is all," said Donna Dolores, sitting up, with a slight gesture of impatience.

"Very well. Then, as I understand, the case is simply this: You hold a grant to a piece of land, actually possessed by a squat.. ter, who claims it through his wife or sister

legally it doesn't matter which-by virtue of a bequest made by one Dr. Devarges, who also held a grant to the same property ?"

66

"Yes," said Donna Dolores, hesitatingly. Well, the matter lies between you and Dr. Devarges only. It is simply a question of the validity of the original grants. All that you have told me does not alter that radical fact. Stay! One moment! May I ask how you have acquired these later details?"

"By letter."

"From whom?"

"There was no signature. The writer offered to prove all he said. It was anonymous."

Arthur rose with a superior smile.

"May I ask you further, without impertinence, if it is upon this evidence that you propose to abandon your claim to a valuable property?"

"I have told you before that it is not a legal question, Don Arturo," said Donna Dolores, waving her fan a little more rapidly.

"Good! let us take it in the moral or sentimental aspect-since you have proposed to honor me with a request for my counsel. To begin, you have a sympathy for the orphan, who does not apparently exist." "But her brother?"

"Has already struck hands with the impostor, and married her to secure the claim. And this brother-what proof is there that he is not an impostor too?"

"True," said Donna Dolores, musingly. "He will certainly have to settle that trifling question with Dr. Devarges's heirs, whoever they may be."

66

True," said Donna Dolores.

"In short, I see no reason, even from your own view-point, why you should not fight this claim. The orphan you sympathize with is not an active party. You have

only a brother opposed to you, who seems to have been willing to barter away a sister's birthright. And, as I said before, your sympathies, however kind and commendable they may be, will be of no avail, unless the courts decide against Dr. Devarges. My advice is to fight. If the right does not always succeed, my experience is that the Right, at least, is apt to play its best card, and put forward its best skill. And until it does that, it might as well be the Wrong, you know."

"You are wise, Doh Arturo. But you lawyers are so often only advocates. Pardon, I mean no wrong. But if it were Grace the sister, you understand-what would be your advice?"

"The same. Fight it out! If I could overthrow your grant, I should do it. The struggle, understand me, is there, and not with this wife and sister. But how does it come that a patent for this has not been applied for before by Gabriel? Did your anonymous correspondent explain that fact? It is a point in our favor."

"You forget-our grant was only recently discovered."

"True! it is about equal, then, ab initio. And the absence of this actual legatee is in our favor."

"Why?"

"Because there is a certain human sympathy in juries with a pretty orphan-particularly if poor."

"How do you know she was pretty ?" asked Donna Dolores, quickly.

"I presume so. It is the privilege of orphanage," he said, with a bow of cold gallantry.

"You are wise, Don Arturo. May you live a thousand years."

This time it was impossible but Arthur should notice the irony of Donna Dolores's manner. All his strong combative instincts

rose.

The mysterious power of her beauty, which he could not help acknowledging; her tone of superiority, whether attributable to a consciousness of this power over him, or some knowledge of his past-all aroused his cold pride. He remembered the reputation that Donna Dolores bore as a religious devotee and rigid moralist. If he had been taxed with his abandonment of Grace, with his half-formed designs upon Mrs. Sepulvida, he would have coldly admitted them without excuse or argument. In doing so, he would have been perfectly conscious that he should lose the esteem of Donna Dolores, of whose value he had become, within the

He rose, and, standing respectfully before his fair client, said:

"Have you decided fully? Do I understand that I am to press this claim with a view of ousting these parties, or will you leave them for the present in undisturbed possession of the land ?"

"But what do you say?" continued Donna Dolores, with her eyes fixed upon his face.

"I have said already," returned Arthur, with a patient smile. "Morally and legally, my advice is to press the claim!"

Donna Dolores turned her eyes away with the slightest shade of annoyance.

"Bueno. We shall see. There is time enough. Be seated, Don Arturo. What is this? Surely you will not refuse our hospitality to-night ?"

66

"I fear," said Arthur, with grave politeness, that I must return to the Mission at once. I have already delayed my departure a day. They expect me in San Francisco to-morrow."

"Let them wait. You shall write that important business keeps you here, and Diego shall ride my own horse to reach the embarcadero for the steamer to-night. Tomorrow he will be in San Francisco."

Before he could stay her hand she had rung a small bronze bell that stood beside

her.

"But, Donna Dolores-" Arthur began hastily.

"I understand," interrupted Donna Dolores. "Diego," she continued rapidly, as a servant entered the room, "saddle Jovita instantly and make ready for a journey. Then return here. Pardon!" she turned to Arthur. "You would say your time is valuable. A large sum depends upon your presence! Good! Write to your partners that I will pay all-that no one else can afford to give as large a sum for your services as myself. Write that here you must stay."

Annoyed and insulted as Arthur felt, he could not help gazing upon her with an admiring fascination. The imperious habit of command; an almost despotic control of a hundred servants; a certain barbaric contempt for the unlimited revenues at her disposal that prompted the act, became her

wonderfully. In her impatience the quick blood glanced through her bronzed cheek, her little slipper tapped the floor imperiously, and her eyes flashed in the darkness. Suddenly she stopped, looked at Arthur, and hesitated.

For

"Pardon me. I have done wrong. give me, Don Arturo. I am a spoiled woman who for five years has had her own way. I am apt to forget there is any world beyond my little kingdom here. Go. Since it must be so, go at once."

She sank back on the sofa, half veiled her face with her fan, and dropped the long fringes of her eyes with a deprecating and half languid movement.

Arthur stood for a moment irresolute and hesitating, but only for a moment.

"Let me thank you for enabling me to fulfill a duty without foregoing a pleasure. If your messenger is trustworthy and fleet it can be done. I will stay."

She turned toward him suddenly and smiled. A smile apparently so rare to that proud little mouth and those dark melancholy eyes; a smile that disclosed the smallest and whitest of teeth in such dazzling contrast to the shadow of her face; a smile that even after its brightness had passed still left its memory in a dimple in either nut-brown cheek and a glistening moisture in the dark eyes-that Arthur felt the warm blood rise to his face.

"There are writing materials in the other room. Diego will find you there," said Donna Dolores," and I will rejoin you soon. Thanks."

She held out the smallest and brownest of hands. Arthur bent over it for a single moment, and then withdrew with a quickened pulse to the outer room. As the door closed upon him, Donna Dolores folded her fan, threw herself back upon the sofa, and called in a quick whisper:

"Manuela!"

The old woman re-appeared with an anxious face and ran toward the sofa. But she was too late; her mistress had fainted.

CHAPTER XXI.

A LEAF OUT OF THE PAST.

ARTHUR'S letter to his partners was a brief explanation of his delay, and closed with the following sentence:

"Search the records for any deed transfer of the grant from Dr. Devarges."

He had scarcely concluded before Diego entered ready for the journey. When he

had gone Arthur waited with some impatience the re-appearance of Donna Dolores. To his disappointment, however, only the solemn major-domo strode grimly into the room like a dark-complexioned ghost, and, as it seemed to Arthur, with a strong suggestion of the Commander in Don Giovanni in his manner, silently beckoned him to follow to the apartment set aside for his reception. In keeping with the sun-evading instincts of Spanish Californian architecture the room was long, low, and half lighted; the two barred windows on either side of the door-way gave upon the corridor and court-yard below; the opposite wall held only a small, narrow, deeply embrasured loop-hole, through which Arthur could see the vast, glittering sun-illumined plain beyond. yond. The hard, monotonous, unwinking glare without did not penetrate the monastic gloom of this chamber; even the insane, incessant restlessness of the wind that perpetually beset the bleak walls was unheard and unfelt in the grave, contemplative solitude of this religious cell.

Mingled with this grateful asceticism was the quaint contrast of a peculiar Spanish luxuriousness. In a curtained recess an immense mahogany bedstead displayed a yellow satin coverlet profusely embroidered with pink and purple silk flowers. The borders of the sheets and cases of the satin pillows were deeply edged with the finest lace. Beside the bed and before a large arm-chair heavy rugs of barbaric colors covered the dark wooden floor, and in front of the deep oven-like hearth lay an immense bear skin. Above the hearth hung an ebony and gold crucifix, and, mingled with a few modern engravings, the usual Catholic saints and martyrs occupied the walls. It struck Arthur's observation oddly that the subjects of the secular engravings were snow landscapes. The Hospice of St. Bernard in winter, a pass in the Austrian Tyrol, the Steppes of Russia, a Norwegian plain, all to Arthur's fancy brought the temperature of the room down considerably. A small water-color of an Alpine flower touched him so closely that it might have blossomed from his recollection.

Dinner, which was prefaced by a message from Donna Dolores excusing herself through indisposition, was served in solemn silence. A cousin of the late Don José Salvatierra represented the family and pervaded the meal with a mild flavor of stale cigaritos and dignified criticism of remote events. Arthur, disappointed at the absence of the