But through the years that succeeded, Tia Teresa had known that he lived—had known in her heart of hearts that he would live until the vendetta he had sworn against Ben Thurston would be accomplished. The remittances that arrived from time to time, first from Spain, then from England, needed no signature to show that they were from her young master of former years and that he still held his faithful old nurse in affectionate remembrance. And at last had come the crowning surprise of all. Tia Teresa had been bidden to come to Los Angeles by a letter which bore a strange signature, but the handwriting of which she had immediately recognized. And there, in a fine home beneath the foothills that skirt the city to the north, she had found Don Manuel again, much older in manner than by lapse of years—quiet, reserved, tinged with a sadness of which she knew the cause, but happy withal, for he was married to a beautiful English girl and had a little baby daughter. And as nurse to this child Tia Teresa, to her great joy, was promptly installed. Thus again she had become the trusted servant in Don Manuel’s home, the only one around him possessing his full confidence and knowing the secret story of his past. For, amid these changed surroundings, his name was Ricardo Robles, his standing that of a Spaniard or Mexican of wealth, of scholarly tastes, and devoted to the seclusion of his home with its spacious surrounding gardens. Their next door neighbors were an English family named Darlington, Mrs. Darlington and Mrs. Robles having been life-long friends. And here, too, was another tiny child in the home, likewise a daughter. Seated in the summer-house, Tia Teresa was going over in her mind the whole chain of happenings—the new era that had dawned and had brought the hope of restored and abiding happiness for Don Manuel. But it had been fated not so to be. Within a year his young wife had died, his child was motherless, he himself, if not alone in the world, was broken-hearted. For a spell he had fits of brooding, then all of a sudden he had sold the home that could only henceforth be for him a place of saddening memories. His daughter Merle, taking her English mother’s maiden name of Farnsworth, was transferred to the loving care of Mrs. Darlington. Thus had it come about that Grace Darlington and Merle Farnsworth had been brought up as sisters, with Tia Teresa their nurse, and in later years their devoted attendant.