At the wedding breakfast words dripped like honey from the mouth of Señor Alvarado, as he spoke of the lovely bride. Grave Castro smiled approbation; the clever Carillo applauded; his ally, Don Pio Pico, cried aloud, "Bon! Bon! Buena!" Even Alvarado's saturnine enemy, the half-Sicilian, Di Vestro, clapped his hands, as the señor, the honey-drip becoming torrential eloquence, said: "For the kiss of such a bride as the Señora Morando, gladly would I again drive that Mexican usurper, Micheltorena, from California soil; yes, and every follower he has!" "Will you! Will you!" exclaimed the young wife, blushing at mention of the new name. Stepping up, she kissed squarely the Señor Alvarado, her mother's brother. "A challenge! A challenge!" from the guests. "The former governor at last has found a nut he cannot crack. Aha! Alvarado, thy kinswoman is ever quicker in retort than thou." The tall politician bowed gently to the Señora Doña Carmelita. "If you draw them hither, mi querida, no power of mine could budge them a single inch." "Well said! Well said!" Later came the afternoon barbecue in the foothills. Dozens of beeves were roasting in deep pits, on live-coals, the outdoor sports of early California first whetting the appetite for the feast. Bonfire blazed red against crag and forest that night, as peon and peona continued the repast, and danced the fandango to the music of guitar, and the surprised cries of catamount and wolf. At the hacienda house the Señor and Señora Morando danced in the contra danza amidst the plaudits of the lookers-on. Señor Mendoza, threescore and ten and one, led forth the lithe Francesca Sanchez, and never youth tripped a lighter step than did the governor of California at his daughter's wedding. Pio Pico, gallant and graceful, placed his hat on a señorita's head, and they followed Mendoza and his partner. Alvarado and Castro, Pedro Zelaya and Abelardo Peralta found ladies and joined; so did de la Barra, and Higuera, Salvador Vallejo and Nazario Dominguez, until, as some said, California north, and south, and center, was united, if only for the contra danza. Small hours found the gaiety undiminished, for midnight supper strengthened for further dancing. Neither was one day deemed sufficient to do adequate honor to the marriage of Carmelita Mendoza and Comandante Morando. Next day the couple, the Governor Mendoza, and all friends repaired to the hacienda house of Fulgencio Higuera, two leagues away, to dance and to make merry till the break of another morning. The third day was passed with Señor Berryessa, near pueblo San José, the following at Marco Calderon's, and so on. The seventh day found them entering the porte cochere of their own home, once the residence of Colonel Barcelo, from whose gates, ere many moons, they were to see, with rejoicing hearts, the Stars and Stripes burst, in unending vigil, over government house, plaza and castle.