‘Now hear my report as chairman of the committee of arrangements,’ said Geoffrey Strong, seating himself with dignity on a barrel of nails. ‘The tents, ropes, tool-boxes, bed-sacks, blankets, furniture, etc., all went down on Monday’s steamer, and I have a telegram from Larry’s Landing saying that they arrived in good order, and that a Mexican gentleman who owns a mammoth wood-cart will take them up to-morrow when we go ourselves. The procession will move at one P.M., wind and weather permitting, in the following order:— ‘1. Chief Noble on his gallant broncho. ‘2. Commander Strong on his ditto, ditto. ‘3. Main conveyance or triumphal chariot, driven by Aide-de-Camp John Howard, and carrying Dr. and Mrs. Winship, our most worshipful and benignant host and hostess; Master Dick Winship, the heir-apparent; three other young persons not worth mentioning; and four cans of best leaf lard, which I omitted to put with the other provisions. ‘4. Wood-cart containing baggage, driven by Señor Don Manuel Felipe Hilario Noriega from Dead Wood Gulch. ‘5. One small tan terrier.’ ‘Oh, Geoff, Geoff, pray do stop! it’s too much!’ cried the girls in a fit of laughter. ‘Hurrah!’ shouted Jack, tossing his hat into a tall eucalyptus-tree in his excitement, ‘Tent life for ever!’ ‘Good-bye, ye pomps and vanities!’ chanted Bell, kissing her hand in imaginary farewell. ‘Verily the noisy city shall know us no more, for we depart for the green forests.’ ‘And the city will not be as noisy _when_ you depart,’ murmured Jack, with an impudence that luckily passed unnoticed. ‘If Elsie could only come too!’ sighed Polly. * * * * * Wednesday morning dawned as bright and beautiful as all mornings are wont to dawn in Southern California. A light mist hung over the old adobe mission church, through which, with its snow-white towers and cold, clear-cut lines, it rose like a frozen fairy castle. Bell opened her sleepy eyes with the very earliest birds, and running to the little oval window, framed with white-rose vines, looked out at the new day just creeping up into the world. ‘Oh dear and beautiful home of mine, how charming, how charming you are! I wonder if you are not really Paradise!’ she said, dreamily; and the marvel is that the rising sun did not stop a moment in sheer surprise at the sight of this radiant morning vision; for the oval window opening to the east was a pretty frame, with its outline marked by the dewy rose-vine covered with hundreds of pure, half-opened buds and swaying tendrils, and she stood there in it, a fair image of the morning in her innocent white gown. Her luminous eyes still mirrored the shadowy visions of dreamland, mingled with dancing lights of hope and joyful anticipation; while on her fresh cheeks, which had not yet lost the roundness of childhood, there glowed, as in the eastern skies, the faint pink blush of the morning.