“Thou thinkest of unhappy marriages because thou hast just heard of Elena’s death.  But there are many others.”

“Did you hear of the present she left her mother?”

“No.”  Dona Pomposa dropped her spoon; she dearly loved a bit of gossip.  “What was it?”

“You know that a year ago Elena went home to Los Quervos and begged Don Roberto and Dona Jacoba on her knees to forgive her, and they did, and were glad to do it.  Dona Jacoba was with her when she was so ill at the last, and just before she died Elena said:  ’Mother, in that chest you will find a legacy from me.  It is all of my own that I have in the world, and I leave it to you.  Do not take it until I am dead.’  And what do you think it was?  The greenhide reata.”

“Mother of God!  But Jacoba must have felt as if she were already in purgatory.”

“It is said that she grew ten years older in the night.”

“May the saints be praised, my child can leave me no such gift.  But all men are not like Dario Castanares.  I would have thee marry an American.  They are smart and know how to keep the gold.  Remember, I have little now, and thou canst not be young forever.”

“I have seen no American I would marry.”

“There is Don Abel Hudson.”

“I do not trust that man.  His tongue is sweet and his face is handsome, but always when I meet him I feel a little afraid, although it goes away in a minute.  The Senor Dumas says that a woman’s instincts—­”

“To perdition with Senor Dumas!  Does he say that a chit’s instincts are better than her mother’s?  Don Abel throws about the money like rocks.  He has the best horses at the races.  He tells me that he has a house in Yerba Buena—­”

“San Francisco.  And I would not live in that bleak and sandy waste.  Did you notice how he limped at the ball last night?”

“No.  What of that?  But I am not in love with Don Abel Hudson if thou art so set against him.  It is true that no one knows just who he is, now I think of it.  I had not made up my mind that he was the husband for thee.  But let it be an American, my Eulogia.  Even when they have no money they will work for it, and that is what no Californian will do—­”

But Eulogia had run out of the room:  she rarely listened to the end of her mother’s harangues.  She draped a reboso about her head, and went over to the house of Graciosa La Cruz.  Her friend was sitting by her bedroom window, trimming a yellow satin bed-spread with lace, and Eulogia took up a half-finished sheet and began fastening the drawn threads into an intricate pattern.

“Only ten days more, my Graciosa,” she said mischievously.  “Art thou going to run back to thy mother in thy night-gown, like Josefita Olvera?”

“Never will I be such a fool!  Eulogia, I have a husband for thee.”

“To the tunnel of the mission with husbands!  I shall be an old maid like Aunt Anastacia, fat, with black whiskers.”