“‘These Castilian roses,’ he say, very soft, but in very bad Spanish, ’they are very beautiful and a part of Monterey—­a part of you.  Look, I am going to plant this here, and long before it grow to be a big bush I come back and you will wear its buds in your hair when we are married in that lovely old church.  Now help me,’ and then they kneel down and he stick it in the ground, and all their fingers push the earth around it.  Then she give a little sob and say, ‘You must go?’

“He lift her up and put his arms around her tight.  ‘I must go,’ he say.  ’I am not my own master, you know, and the orders have come.  But my heart is here, in this old garden, and I come back for it.’  And then she put her arms around him and he kiss her, and she love him so I forget to be sorry for Don Ramon.  After all, it is the woman who should be happy.  He hold her a long time, so long I am afraid Dona Carmen come out to look for her.  I lift up on my knees (I am sit down before) and look in the window and I see she is asleep, and I am glad.  Well!  After a while they walk up and down again, and he tell her all about his home far away, and about some money he go to get when the law get ready, and how he cannot marry on his pay.  Then he say how he go to be a great general some day and how she will be the more beautiful woman in—­how you call it?—­Washington, I think.  And she cry and say she does not care, she only want him.  And he tell her water the rose-bush every day and think of him, and he will come back before it is large, and every time a bud come out she can know he is thinking of her very hard.”

“Ay, pobrecita!” said Francesca, “I wonder will he come back.  These men!”

“Surely.  Are not all men mad for La Tulita?”

“Yes—­yes, but he go far away.  To America!  Dios de mi alma!  And men, they forget.”  Francesca heaved a deep sigh.  Her youth was far behind her, but she remembered many things.

“He return,” said Mariquita, the young and romantic.

“When does he go?”

Mariquita pointed to the bay.  A schooner rode at anchor.  “He go to Yerba Buena on that to-morrow morning.  From there to the land of the American.  Ay, yi!  Poor La Tulita!  But his linen is dry.  I must take it to iron for I have it promised for six in the morning.”  And she hastily gathered the articles from the low bushes and hurried away.

That evening as the women returned to town, talking gayly, despite the great baskets on their heads, they passed the hut of Faquita and paused at the window to inquire for the child.  The little one lay gasping on the bed.  Faquita sat beside her with bowed head.  An aged crone brewed herbs over a stove.  The dingy little house faced the hills and was dimly lighted by the fading rays of the sun struggling through the dark pine woods.

“Holy Mary, Faquita!” said Francesca, in a loud whisper.  “Does Liseta die?”

Faquita sprang to her feet.  Her cross old face was drawn with misery.  “Go, go!” she said, waving her arms, “I want none of you.”