and was full of active life.  At one end was the house of the Governor of all the Californias, at another the church, which is all that stands to-day.  Under other walls of the square were barracks, quarters for officers and their families, store-rooms for ammunition and general supplies in case of a raid by hostile tribes (when all the town must be accommodated within the security of those four great walls), and a large hall in which many a ball was given.  The aristocratic pioneers of California loved play as well as work.  Beyond were great green plains alive with cattle, and above all curved the hills dark with pines.  Three soldiers had left the Presidio and were sauntering toward the convent.

“It is Enrico Ortega!” whispered Eustaquia Carillo, excitedly.

“And Ramon de Castro!” scarcely breathed Elena Estudillo.

“And Jose Yorba!”

“Not Pepe Gomez?  Ay, yi!”

“Nor Manuel Ameste!”

The only girl who did not speak stood at the end of the row.  Her eyes were fixed on the church, whose windows were dazzling with the reflected sunlight of the late afternoon.

The officers, who apparently had been absorbed in conversation and their fragrant cigaritos, suddenly looked up and saw the row of handsome and mischievous faces.  They ran forward, and dashed their sombreros into the dust before the wall.

“At your feet, senoritas!  At your feet!” they cried.

“Have they any?” whispered one.  “How unreal they look!  How symbolical!”

“The rose in your hair, Senorita Eustaquia, for the love of Heaven!” cried Ortega, in a loud whisper.

She detached the rose, touched it with her lips, and cast it to the officer.  He almost swallowed it in the ardour of his caresses.

None of the girls spoke.  That would have seemed to them the height of impropriety.  But Elena extended her arm over the wall so that her little hand hung just above young Castro’s head.  He leaped three times in the air, and finally succeeded in brushing his mustache against those coveted finger-tips:  rewarded with an approving but tantalizing laugh.  Meanwhile, Jose Yorba had torn a silver eagle from his sombrero, and flung it to Lola de Castro, who caught and thrust it in her hair.

“Ay, Dios!  Dios! that the cruel wall divides us,” cried Yorba.

“We will mount each upon the other’s shoulder—­”

“We will make a ladder from the limbs of the pines on the mountain—­”

“Senoritas!”

The six heads dropped from the wall like so many Humpty-Dumpties.  As they flashed about the officers caught a glimpse of horror in twelve expanded eyes.  A tall woman, serenely beautiful, clad in a long gray gown fastened at her throat with a cross, stood just within the trees.  The six culprits thought of the tragic romance which had given them the honour of being educated by Concepcion de Arguello, and hoped for some small measure of mercy.  The girl who had looked over the heads of the officers, letting her gaze rest on the holy walls of the church, alone looked coldly unconcerned, and encountered steadily the sombre eyes of the convent’s mistress.