Patience drew herself into the buggy and braced her back against the seat. Her face had little more beauty than her legs. It was colourless and freckled. The mouth was firm, almost dogged, as if the contest with life had already begun. Her brows and lashes were several shades darker than her hair, but her eyes, wide apart and very bright, were a light, rather cold grey. The nose alone was a beautiful feature, straight and fine; and the hands, although rough and sunburned, were tapering and slender, and very flexible. In her red frock, the highly-coloured little Spanish girl glowed like a cactus blossom beside a neglected weed. Her plump face was full of blood; her large dark eyes were indolent and soft. Patience’s eyes comprehended everything within their radius in one flashing glance; Rosita’s, even at the tender age of fifteen, looked unswerving disapproval of all exertion, mental or physical. “I wonder if your mother is drunk?” she asked in her slow delicious voice. “Likely,” said Patience, with frowning resignation. “But let’s talk of something more agreeable. Isn’t this perfume heavenly?” The dark solemn woods were ravishing with the perfumes of spring, the perfume of wild violet and lilac and lily, and the faint sweet odour the damp earth gives up as the sun goes down. From above came the strong bracing scent of the pines. Now and again the wind brought a salt whiff from the ocean. No birds carolled, but the pines sang their eternal dirge. “What’s your ideal?” demanded Patience. “Ideal? What ideal?” “Why, of man, of course.” “Oh, man!” contemptuously. “I haven’t thought much about men. I don’t read novels like you do. I wish somebody would die and leave me a thousand dollars so I could live in San Francisco and have a new dress every day and go to the theatre every night. Miss Galpin says we mustn’t think about boys, and I don’t—perhaps because the boys in Monterey are so horrid.” “Boys? Who said anything about boys?” The chrysalis elevated her patrician nose. “I mean men.” “Well, you’re mean to turn up your nose at boys. They like you a good deal better than they do me, and a good many of the other girls.” “That’s funny, isn’t it? and I not pretty. But I suppose it’s because I talk. You just sit still and look pretty, and that’s not very entertaining. I read in a novel that men like that; but boys have got to be entertained. Goodness gracious! Don’t I know it? When I was at Manuela’s party the other night in my old washed muslin frock and plaid sash, didn’t I talk my throat sore to make them forget that I was the worst dressed girl in the room and had the most freckles? Of course the girls didn’t forget—nor some other things—” with a bitter lowering of the lids—“but the boys did. Somehow I feel as if men would always be my friends, if I’m not pretty.”