HONORED MISTRESS DEERING,--I lay myself at your feet, and with myself a pretty bit of game I have just killed, thinking that the fair Venetian might fancy a venison steak for her breakfast. I kiss your hand, dear my lady, and am your most unworthy but loyal servitor,

JOHN GRAHAM.

"Of course, knew it was Graham, queer creature. Wonder why he did not stop and take breakfast with us. He is an unaccountable fellow."

"What did you call him?"

"Graham; his full name is John Dougla.s.s Graham. Just like a hero's in a novel. But Graham never does anything very heroic, I fancy."

"Shall you cut off his skin?"

"Whose? Graham's?"

"How foolish, Mr. Deering. I mean the deer's fur."

"Oh no, certainly not; in America we always serve game with the hide or feathers. In fact, we usually do not remove the wool from our mutton; but knowing that you were accustomed to seeing it dressed after the super-civilized fashion of the Venetians, I have--"

"Mr. Deering, that is stupid. I want his skin and horns; please arrange them for me."

"Yes, Princess; your most humble servant will obey your mandate."

He seized the creature by its slender legs, hoisted it deftly to his shoulders, and disappeared through the side door. Millicent picked up the bit of a note, smoothed it, and laid it at Mrs. Deering's plate on the breakfast table.

Millicent asked Barbara later on in the day who and what John Graham might be. She was told that the man with the bronze hair and strange eyes was a near neighbor, and that she would without doubt soon make his acquaintance.

With this answer Millicent was fain to be content. She thought about him all that day and dreamed of him that night; the next morning his face was not so distinctly in her mind, but her thoughts were constantly busy with weaving romances in which John Graham played a conspicuous part. The girl was indeed a creature "of the stuff which dreams are made of;" the web of her daily life, no matter how common-place its actual experience might be, was rich with her own vivid imaginings, like the gold thread that a weaver twists through a sad-colored fabric.

"Mr. Deering, take me to the dairy. I have not yet seen it," said Millicent one afternoon, as they all sat together on the wide piazza, after the early dinner. The young man rose slowly, his great length unfolding itself as he left his chair; and for answer put down his pipe and reached up for Millicent's hat, which he had hung on a peg high above her reach. The two young people pa.s.sed down the gravel walk between the broad flower beds fragrant with the wonderful roses which grow only upon the sh.o.r.es of the Pacific. A geranium tree twelve feet high, with its great scarlet bunches, and the vine of Marechal roses which climbed up the piazza and tapped with its heavy blossoms at her cas.e.m.e.nt, aroused Millicent's enthusiasm.

The dairy, Hal told her, was fully thirty years old. But her own palace had frowned grim and black upon the Grand Ca.n.a.l before the pa.s.sengers on the good ship "Mayflower" had landed in Plymouth. The dairy was a plain, neat frame-building painted white, looking out upon a great farm-yard. Here the pretty cows all stood crowded together, waiting their turn to offer up their evening tribute. Two black-browed Mexicans were milking, and a tall Yankee was overseeing the straining of the milk. He stood by a large trough and received the br.i.m.m.i.n.g buckets from the milkers, pouring their contents through a strainer into the great receptacle. In the midst of the herd lay Jupiter, the splendid bull, lazily chewing his cud and switching away the sand flies with his thick black tail.

In a cool inner room were long shelves ranged about the brick walls, whereon stood a shining array of pans filled with milk in different stages. Millicent was one of those people who are always stimulated with a desire to accomplish whatever other people are engaged in doing. She now announced her intention of learning to milk. This suggestion was promptly vetoed by Hal, who, to divert her attention, called to one of the men to bring him the skimming utensils. He placed a large stone jar beneath the shelf, and taking one of the milk pans which was covered with a rich coating of yellow cream, proceeded to skim it. His only tool was a little wooden wand, resembling a sculptor's modelling stick.

With this he separated the yellow disk of cream from the sides of the pan, tipping it slightly so that the whole ma.s.s of cream slipped off unbroken, leaving the pale-blue skimmed milk in the vessel. Millicent was delighted with the operation which Hal accomplished with such skill, and after many unsuccessful attempts finally performed the feat in a manner very creditable to a beginner.

"If you will find your way back to the house, Princess, I will help the men to finish the milking," said young Deering, when Millicent had announced her intention of returning.

She nodded her a.s.sent, and walking a few steps stopped and leaned over the gate of the farm-yard. Presently Deering came out from the dairy, having donned his rough overalls and jersey, and, placing himself on a three-legged stool, proceeded to milk a tall white cow. Millicent looked at him musingly for a few minutes, and then took her way down the path which led to the house. It was but a short distance, and lay within sight of both farm and dwelling-house, and yet she was somewhat astonished at the young man's allowing her to return alone. To see him milking, too, at work with the common laborers, had greatly perplexed her. She cast a glance over her shoulder to rea.s.sure herself that it was really Hal's hatless head which was bending forward, almost touching the side of the white cow. "And yet he is a gentleman," she said aloud; and, remembering the white hands of her papa and the gentlemen whom she had known in the Old World, was reminded of the truth, which when it is spoken seems a truism, and yet which is often lost sight of, that the proof of gentlehood lies neither in the skin of the body, nor its raiment.

Neither goodly clothes nor skin Show the gentleman within.

CHAPTER III.

"And to watch you sink by the fireside now Back again, as you mutely sit Musing by fire-light, that great brow And the spirit-small hand propping it."

John Dougla.s.s Graham, by birth American, by descent Scottish, by profession painter, sat looking out from his tower window. It was too dark to paint, and not yet late enough for him to light his study lamp and begin his evening work; so he sat idle, a rare thing for him.

Before his window there stretched a fair landscape; and a man, a painter above other men, might well be forgiven an hour's idleness in such a place. The sun's last rays made the little copse look more golden and dreamy than did the stronger morning light. The still pool with its warm reflection of sky and trees, the mysterious dark wood beyond, all shadowy and full of dreams, made a picture which his hand never wearied of reproducing. On his easel stood a canvas which bore a reflection of the scene on which he was looking, painted in a strong, masterly manner, but not yet completed. "Ah, Heavens! no wonder that men love to paint in cities, with nothing of nature's beauty before them to shame their work. If I dwelt face to face with a brick wall and saw no motion save that of horse-cars and over-laden dray horses I might be more satisfied with what I accomplish. This picture might then seem beautiful to me.

It is a different thing to look into the face of the great model and then at one's work. Only the strongest of us can do that, only our Dupres and Rousseaus. Shall I ever feel that I can even dimly picture this one view? Can I ever send my testimony of beauty to the world?

Can I say the one word of truth which was given me to speak?"

Graham spoke to the four walls to which most of his conversation was addressed. The only sympathy he ever received in his bursts of enthusiasm or despair was from a portrait which hung where the first rays of light fell upon it in the morning. It was the portrait of a woman neither young nor beautiful with the beauty of youth. A tender, sad face, with those heavy lines at the mouth and nose which tell of grief and long weeping. The gray hair was smoothly brushed from the forehead, and the whole mien and costume showed that dignity of age so rarely seen in these days when grandmothers dress in rainbow-hued garments fit for their grandchildren, curl and frizzle their locks after the mode worn by the reigning beauty of the time, and in every possible way simulate a youth whose charm they have not, thus losing the real grace which belongs to their age. Before his mother's portrait the artist always kept fresh flowers, and to that dear and n.o.ble face his eyes were turned in a mute appeal for sympathy many times during the long solitary day.

The fires in the western sky burned low and finally faded out before Graham rose from his seat near the window and touched his lamp into flame. The searching light of the large astral revealed clearly the interior of the apartment in which the artist lived and worked. It was a square, high room, not very large, with a miscellaneous furnishing.

One corner, half hidden by a large canvas, was devoted to his narrow wooden bed and dressing-table. Near a large cas.e.m.e.nt stood his easel with palette and brushes. On the walls hung a pair of foils and masks and some boxing gloves. These, and a pair of Indian clubs in the corner, proved that the occupant of the tower was not careless of developing the splendid muscles with which he was endowed. Near the doorway hung a string of curious j.a.panese _netshukes_,--masks, monkeys, bears, men, women, and fruit, carefully carved in wood or ivory by the greatest artificers the world knows to-day. The walls were covered with pictures and sketches; the large table littered with books and tubes of paint. A group of deer antlers served as clothes-pegs, and the floor was strewn with the skins of these and many other animals. A quaint apartment, in which no attempts at the picturesque had been made, which the careless grouping together of many objects had nevertheless attained.

John Graham had reclaimed the old tower from utter desolation two years before, when he took up his residence in the ruins of the Spanish Mission. The adobe building had fallen to decay, a thick cloak of ivy and flowering vines mercifully hiding from the light of day the desolate ruin of what had been the religious centre of the country of San Rosario. The church walls had fallen to the ground; but the reredos and deserted altar stood swept by the winds of heaven, and decked with climbing roses and clinging ferns. The tower, which had been built very substantially, and with a view to defence in case of danger, still stood stanch, gray and weather-beaten. A flight of steep wooden stairs leading from what had been the vestibule of the church gave access to the room.

The tower stood within the limits of the San Rosario Ranch, the property of Mr. Ralph Almsford, which included twenty square miles of wooded country and arable land.

When Graham had asked permission to establish himself in the old tower, Mr. Almsford had readily granted the request, thinking, however, that he would weary of the solitary life in a few weeks. Two years had now pa.s.sed, and the artist still inhabited his little eyrie, whose possession he disputed with the night owls which had been wont to sit blinking in the tower through the long hours of daylight. The place was five miles distant from the Deering house, and Graham's only neighbor was an old wood-cutter who lived in a cabin hard by, and who went by the name of French John. He prepared the artist's meals and took charge of his room. French John was a strange, silent old creature, whose life had been a varied one. He had served in the French army first as a soldier, then as an officer's servant. His reminiscences, when he could be induced to tell them, were full of interest. He had been in Paris in '48; his hands had helped to tear up the pavement to make the blockades and barriers. He had served in Algiers, whence he had come to America, and gone as a private to the war of the Southern Rebellion. He had finally drifted out to the San Rosario Ranch, where he would in all probability pa.s.s the remainder of his days. For some reason he had received no pension from either of the governments for the support of which he had shed his blood. In his old age this stranded bit of humanity was forced to support himself by the hard labor of a wood-cutter. His little cabin was built behind the altar, where the Lady Chapel had once stood, sheltered from the winds by the high screen of the reredos.

It was to the humble dwelling of French John that Graham proceeded after having made a toilet with unusual care. The door of the little log hut was ajar; and as he approached, the interior was entirely visible, revealed by the uncertain light of the wood-fire. The old man was stooping over the blaze with a saucepan in his hand, the contents of which he was vigorously stirring. Three cats of preternaturally grave aspect sat nearby, intently watching the culinary preparations. A mangy old hunting dog lay snoring in the corner, gray and scarred as his master. A battered fowling-piece and a greasy game-bag were flung on the wooden bench which served as table and chair to the occupant of the humble dwelling. The young man paused a moment on the threshold and sighed. The unkempt little cot with its lonely owner only differed in degree from his own tower, from himself. He had not even the companionship of the dumb beasts. When he should grow as old and battered as the wrinkled wood-cutter, would he be dependent for sympathy on a purring cat, or an old dog? Presently he spoke, but it was in a loud, cheery voice which in nowise indicated the sombre thought which had just suggested itself to his mind.

"Good-evening, John. What luck did you have to-day?"

"Four quail and two rabbits," replied the old man laconically, without returning the greeting of his visitor.

"And what have you in that old iron pot of yours? Something very good, I warrant."

"Stewed quail with bacon."

"Well, you must eat it yourself, for I do not want any supper to-night; I am going up to the house to pa.s.s the evening. Here is a package of tobacco for you. I shall be ready at the usual time for my breakfast."

The old man nodded his thanks for the present; and Graham left the hut, and proceeded to the spot where his horse was tethered. He saddled and mounted the mustang, and rode swiftly down the narrow path. Old John watched from his doorway the movements of the young man, and when he had disappeared, sat down to his solitary meal. The brief glimpses of Graham and his many kindly acts were the only human influences which touched the life of poor old French John. His dealings with Hal Deering were rare; once in a month the young man visited his cot, overlooked the work he had been engaged upon, and paid him his wages. For the occasional gifts of tobacco and wine, the chance newspaper from Paris, which were the only events of importance in the dull routine of his life, he was indebted to Graham. He gave no expression to his grat.i.tude, and would have been sorely puzzled to do so. But the artist was none the less aware of it; and some portion of the packages which occasionally came to the tower from San Francisco never failed to find their way to the hut of the wood-cutter.

As Graham rode up the gravel path which led to the house, he caught a glimpse of a tall, slender figure swaying out from the gloom of the piazza. A white, bare arm was stretched upward to pluck a bunch of roses from a vine twisted about the porch. Thus much he saw and nothing more, as he fastened his horse and mounted to the piazza, which had suddenly become tenantless. The house door stood hospitably open, and the young man entered the hall and pa.s.sed into the library. The soft candle-light showed him the room and its one occupant, the woman whom he had seen dimly amid the climbing roses an instant before. Evidently she had not known that the hoof-beats on the road were bringing a guest; for she was kneeling upon the hearth, her graceful shoulders bent, her strong white arms steadily working a pair of bellows. The total depravity of inanimate things is never more clearly seen than in the case of a wood-fire that refuses to burn. The girl, after several unavailing efforts to rouse a flame from the smouldering ma.s.s of embers, deliberately took the fire to pieces and rebuilt it after another fashion, putting a handful of pine cones atop of the logs, and setting them alight with a roll of paper. At last she succeeded in starting the blaze, and, stretching her graceful length upon the deerskin rug, she rested her elbows on the low bench before the fender, and lay quite silent, her face supported by her hands, her dark eyes looking into the fire.

John Graham, who had watched from the doorway every movement of the unconscious young woman with the pleasure of an artist in all things which are graceful and beautiful, still stood silent, giving no sign of his presence. The warm, pleasant interior, with its comfortable easy chairs and sofas, its open piano, near which stood a work-basket, its shelves of books and vases of flowers, bore all the infallible indications which mark the inmost shrine of domestic life. This was a room where the members of the household lived. Here was a home, the centre of affection and hospitality. The shadow of the lonely old man and his desolate dwelling rose for a moment before his eyes, and at that thought he stepped forward as if irresistibly drawn toward the cheerful hearth and the graceful woman whose eyes were lighted by the dancing flames. There was a tender look about his mouth, usually so stern in expression, as he came forward into the firelight with an expectant countenance, as if he were about to meet an old friend. Hearing the footsteps, the girl without turning her head said,--

"Well, Barbara, here you see me, making myself comfortable on Graham's deerskin. It has just come home; is it not a beauty?"

Receiving no answer, Miss Millicent Almsford turned her face so that her eyes fell upon John Graham standing near her, with a smile on his lips, a flush on his cheek. Was it the sudden leaping of the fire from the heart of the great apple log, John Graham asked himself, or was it the shining of a flame from within that lighted Millicent's face with a strange radiance at the instant when her eyes met his own? For an instant, a s.p.a.ce of time too short to be counted by seconds, for something less than one quickened heartbeat, they looked at each other, these two, the woman with his name still on her lips, the man drawn toward the warm fireside by an uncontrollable desire to take his place in the picture, to remain no longer an outsider, a looker-on. One instant, and then habit, ceremony, the second nature of both, a.s.serted itself, and each shrank back from that too intimate glance; the girl rising slowly to her feet, the man making a ceremonious bow.

"I beg your pardon for disturbing you, Miss Almsford; but I found the door open, and I am allowed the privilege of making myself at home at San Rosario. As there is no one here to introduce me, will you allow me to name myself as your most humble servitor, John Graham? I am vain enough to hope that my name is not quite unknown to you. Hal has perhaps spoken of me."

"Indeed, yes, they have all mentioned you frequently. Mrs. Deering and Barbara have not yet returned from the station. When you came in I thought they had returned. I think the train must be late; they drove down to meet a friend. Will you not be seated, Mr. Graham?"

Millicent had by this time quite recovered her equanimity, somewhat shaken by the sudden appearance of the man who had lived so persistently in her thoughts for the past fortnight. She seated herself near the fire, motioning Graham to a chair on the other side.

"I suppose that this fire quite shocks you? Mr. Deering cannot bear to sit in the same room with it; but I have suffered so much from the change of climate that I am allowed to have this little blaze every evening. Do you see this pretty rug? It only came home to-day. Mr.

Deering had it dressed for me. It is from the deer which you brought here one morning,--a beautiful, soft piece of fur."

"Yes, it is well arranged too. Did I understand you, Miss Almsford, to say that Miss Deering had gone to meet some visitors?"