“A year passed, then another.  Packet boats came and went every six months, bringing orders to the comandante in regard to the administration of the military forces, concerning the treatment of foreign vessels, and of numerous other matters, but still the king remained silent on the one subject which, to the minds of the two young people, overshadowed all else.  Luis rashly threatened to run away with his betrothed, while Rafaela, frightened, reminded him that there was not a priest in California or Mexico who would marry them without the king’s order.  And so each time the packet boat entered the harbor their hearts beat with renewed hope and then, disappointed, they watched it disappear through the Gulf of the Farallones, knowing that months would pass before another would arrive.

“Thus six years had gone by since permission had been asked of the king; six interminable years, they seemed to the lovers.  Again the packet boat was sighted on the distant horizon.  Luis saw the full white sails sweep past the fort guarding the entrance; he heard the salute of the guns and watched the anchor lowered into the water before he made his way slowly down to the shore.  It would be the same answer he had received so many times, he was, sure, and he dreaded to put the question again.  Ten minutes later he was racing over the sand-dunes to the Presidio, his face radiant and his hand tightly clasping an official document.  It had come at last—­the order from the king!  Where was Rafaela?  He hurried to her house and, folding her close in his arms, be whispered that their long waiting was at an end; that she was his as long as life should last.

“But, oh, such a little span of happiness was theirs!  Only two brief years, and then the cold hand of death was laid upon the sweet Rafaela.”

For a moment my companion did not move.  A bird sang in the tree above us and the wind sent a shower of pink petals over the green mound.  Then, stooping, he picked a white Castilian rose from a tangle of shrubbery and laid it at the base of the granite shaft.  “In memory of the lovely Rafaela,” he said softly; I unpinned a bunch of fragrant violets from my jacket and placed, them beside his offering, then we silently followed the shaded path to the white picket gate and were once more on the noisy thoroughfare.

“A fitting resting place for the first Mexican governor of California,” he said, glancing back at the heavy facade of the church, “so simple and dignified.  Yet if Luis Argueello had lived in New England, we should have considered his house of equal importance with his grave and have placed a bronze tablet on the front, but you Westerners have, so little regard for old—­”

“If you would like to see the home of Luis Argueello, I will show it to you.  It is at the Presidio.”

“A hopeless mass of neglected ruins, I suppose.  But still I should like to see the old walls, if you can find them.”

“Shall we take the Camino Real on foot, just as the old padres used to?”