GERTRUDE ATHERTON,
in The Californians.

JUNE 18.

The house was a ruinous adobe in the old Mexican quarter of Los Angeles.  The great, bare, whitewashed room contained only the altar and a long mirror in a tarnished gilt frame; one, the symbol of earthly vanity; the other, the very portal of heaven.  All the carved mahogany furniture had long since gone to buy food and charcoal or a rare black gown.

AMANDA MATHEWS,
in The Old Pueblo.

All sorts of men came here in early days—­poor men of good family who had failed at home, or were too proud to work there; desperadoes, adventurers, men of middle life and broken fortunes—­all of them expecting everything from the new land, and ready to tear the heart out of any one who got in their way. * * * Of course, there are Californians and Californians.

GERTRUDE ATHERTON,
in A Whirl Asunder.

JUNE 19.

Beneath the surface—­ah, there lie a numerous host, sad relics of bygone times.  In our cities in poverty, wretchedness, and, alas! too often in dissipation, or, happier fate, in canyon or on hillside where woodman’s axe is heard, one may find men wearily, sadly, often faithfully performing their daily labor who were born heirs to leagues of land where ranged mighty herds of cattle and horses—­men who as boys, perhaps, played their games of quoits with golden slugs from the Indian baskets sitting about the courtyard of their fathers’ houses.

HELEN ELLIOTT BANDINI,
in Some of Our Spanish Families.

JUNE 20.

Jameson’s cord led out to the Spanish quarter.  Some old senoras, their heads covered with shawls, their clothes redolent with the smell of garlic, from time to time shambled across his pathway.  They were heavy old women, in worn flapping slippers and uncorseted figures. * * * With them, this saying, “It is time to be old,” to throw down the game like some startled player, and cast one’s self on the mercies of the Virgin, had come twenty years or so before it should.

FRANCES CHARLES,
in The Siege of Youth.

A JUNE WEDDING.

  The sweetheart of Summer weds today—­
  Pride of the Wild Rose clan: 
    A Butterfly fay
    For a bridesmaid gay,
  And a Bumblebee for best man.

CHARLES ELMER JENNEY,
in Out West, June, 1902.

JUNE 21.

They went to a one-room adobe on the plaza.  A rich, greasy odor came out from it with puffs of the onion-laden smoke of frying things which blurred the light of the one candle set in the neck of a bottle. * * * In the centre of the floor a circle of blackened stones held a fire of wood coals, on the top of which rested a big clay griddle.  Cakes of ground corn were frying there, and on the stove were enchiladas and tamales and chili-con-carne being kept warm.  The air was thick with the pungent, strong smells.