XV

The April flowers were on the hills. Beds of gold-red poppies and silver-blue baby eyes were set like tiles amidst the dense green undergrowth beneath the pines, and on the natural lawns about the white houses. Although hope of driving forth the intruder had gone forever in January, Monterey had resumed in part her old gayety; despair had bred philosophy. But Monterey was Monterey no longer. An American alcalde with a power vested in no judge of the United States ruled over her; to add injury to insult, he had started a newspaper. The town was full of Americans; the United States was constructing a fort on the hill; above all, worse than all, the Californians were learning the value of money. Their sun was sloping to the west.

A thick India shawl hung over the window of Benicia's old room in her mother's house, shutting out the perfume of the hills. A carpet had been thrown on the floor, candles burned in the pretty gold candlesticks that had stood on the altar since Benicia's childhood. On the little brass bedstead lay Benicia, very pale and very pretty, her transparent skin faintly reflecting the pink of the satin coverlet. By the bed sat an old woman of the people. Her ragged white locks were bound about by a fillet of black silk; her face, dark as burnt umber, was seamed and lined like a withered prune; even her long broad nose was wrinkled; her dull eyes looked like mud-puddles; her big underlip was pursed up as if she had been speaking mincing words, and her chin was covered with a short white stubble. Over her coarse smock and gown she wore a black cotton reboso. In her arms she held an infant, muffled in a white lace mantilla.

Dona Eustaquia came in and bent over the baby, her strong face alight with joy.

"Didst thou ever nurse so beautiful a baby?" she demanded.

The old woman grunted; she had heard that question before.

"See how pink and smooth it is--not red and wrinkled like other babies! How becoming is that mantilla! No, she shall not be wrapped in blankets, cap, and shawls."

"She catch cold, most likely," grunted the nurse.

"In this weather? No; it is soft as midsummer. I cannot get cool. Ay, she looks like a rosebud lying in a fog-bank!" She touched the baby's cheek with her finger, then sat on the bed, beside her daughter. "And how dost thou feel, my little one? Thou wert a baby thyself but yesterday, and thou art not much more to-day."

"I feel perfectly well, my mother, and--ay, Dios, so happy! Where is Edourdo?"

"Of course! Always the husband! They are all alike! Hast thou not thy mother and thy baby?"

"I adore you both, mamacita, but I want Edourdo. Where is he?"

Her mother grimaced. "I suppose it is no use to protest. Well, my little one, I think he is at this moment on the hill with Lieutenant Ord."