It was a lovely day.  The coast road to San Diego runs through orange groves for miles, and the perfume of the blossoms hung about us till we came to the sea, where a salt breeze blew away the heavy sweetness.  I lunched on the sand and watched the waves for an hour.  There, at least, are endless re-enforcements!  As fast as the front ranks break more come always to fill their places.

I felt no hurry, as the Smiling Hill-Top is some fifteen miles nearer Pasadena than San Diego—­an easy day’s run—­and I had no engagements, but at last my impatience to see how much our garden had grown started me once more on my way, and we arrived at our wicket gate in the late afternoon.  There were twenty-seven keys on the ring the real-estate agent gave me—­twenty more than caused so much trouble at Baldpate—­but none fitted, so I had the chauffeur lift the gate bodily from its hinges and I was at home!

In California things grow riotously.  Grandparents who haven’t seen their grandsons for years, and find that they have shot up from toddling babies to tall youths, must feel as I did when I saw the vines and shrubs, especially the banana trees planted only six months before!  The lawn over which I had positively wept lay innocent and green—­almost English in its freshness.  The patio was entrancing with blooming vines.  The streptasolen, which has no “little name,” as the French say, was like a cascade of flame over one end of the wall.  The place was ablaze with it.  The three goldfish in the fountain seemed as calm as ever, and apparently have solved the present problem of the high cost of living, for they don’t have to be fed at all.  The three had picked up what they needed without human aid.  I really felt like patting them on the head, but that being out of the question, I was moved to rhyme: 

    “I wish I were a goldfish,
     All in a little bowl;
     I wouldn’t worry whether
     I really had a soul. 
     I’d glide about through sun and shade
     And snatch up little gnats,
     My heaven would be summer
     My hell—­well, call it cats!”

All this time the chauffeur had been wrestling with the key ring, and finally had our bare necessities in the way of doors open.  I had telegraphed our agent that I was coming only long enough before for the house to have what is vulgarly known as “a lick and a promise,” but it looked just as comfortable and pleasant as I knew that it would, and the terrace—­no need to bother about that.  The south wind does the housework there.

That night I went to sleep between sheets fragrant with lavender from my own garden, while the ocean boomed gently on the beach below the hill.  In the week that followed I abolished a number of things.  First of all, meal hours.  I had my meals when I felt like it; in fact, I didn’t wind the clock till I was leaving.  I only did it then on account of the tenants, as some people find the ticking of a clock and the chirping of a cricket pleasant and