"Anabel is a perfect dear," said his companion, whose eyes and cheeks were still glowing, and who looked like a mere girl. "I am much fonder of her than I am of Paula, although we haven't a thing in common. She was domestic and wild about children before she was done with dolls. Of course she married at once. When we were at the High School together she regarded my ambition to be first as a standing joke, and has never read anything heavier than a classic novel in her life. Why I am so fond of her I can't say, unless it is that she is absolutely genuine, and that counts more in the long-run than anything else. Besides, she was my first friend when I came here as a little girl. Her mother--Mrs. Leslie--belongs to one of the old San Francisco families, and had always known my mother. I love her as much as ever, but I am bound to confess that I have missed her little. I suppose complete happiness comes when you miss nobody." They rode on in silence, for the heat was increasing and the dust lay thick on the road and swirled about their heads. There had been no rain since March, and the sea that sent its daily fogs and breezes to cool San Francisco and the towns about the bay was forty miles from Rosewater. "Never mind," said Isabel, as Gwynne mopped his brow for the third time and ostentatiously rubbed his face. "The nights are cool and the hot weather will soon moderate down into the mellowness of October. When the rains come--well it is a toss up, which is worse--the dust or the mud." "Heavens knows what we have swallowed," muttered Gwynne, who had served on sanitary boards and heard much talk of germs. But Isabel only laughed and told him to go to Anabel, who had a nostrum for every ill. A moment later the road led up a hill-side, and at the summit she caught his bridle and reined in. "I brought you this roundabout way on purpose," she said. "Is it not what the poet would call a fair domain?" Below them was a vast flat expanse bounded opposite by a mountain chain, that rose abruptly from the level, breaking into much irregularity of surface above, but all its hollows blurred with woods. Beyond a dip rose, far in the distance, a huge crouching formidable mass--St. Helena, named after a Russian princess, the wife of the last of the Russian governors of northern California. On the plain were golden fields, orchards, compact masses of the eucalyptus-tree planted as shelters for the cattle in time of storm or unbearable heat. Many cattle were roaming about; on the grazing land in the far distance towards the town of St. Peter--a mere white cluster in the north at the base of the range--were the horses. Over the mountains lay a shimmering haze, blue or pink; it was difficult to define whether the colors flowed through each other or subtly united. "It is all yours," added Isabel, emerging from the role of the mere cicerone. "Are you not proud of it?"