She went among the Indians christianizing them, remaining a long while at Soledad, a bleak and cheerless place, where she was also a great solace to the wives of the soldiers and settlers, whose children she taught. The Indians called her 'La Beata,' and by that name she was known in all California until she took the veil, and that was more than forty years later. And she was worshipped, no less. So beautiful she was, so humble, so sweet, and at the same time so practical; she had what the Americans call 'hard sense,' and something of Rezanov's own way of managing people. When she made up her mind to bring a sinner or a savage into the Church she did it. You know. "But do not think she had her way in other things without a struggle. Don Jose and Dona Ignacia--her mother--permitted her to enter upon the religious life, for they understood; and Luis and Santiago made no protest either, for they understood also and had loved Rezanov. But the rest of her family, the relations, the friends, the young men--the caballeros! They went in a body you might say to Don Jose and demanded that Concha, the most beautiful and fascinating and clever girl in New Spain, should come back to the world where she belonged,--be given in marriage. But Concha had always ruled Don Jose, and all the protests went to the winds. And William Sturgis--the young Bostonian who lived with us for so many years? I have not told you of him, and your mother was too young to remember. Well, never mind. He would have taken Concha from California, given her just a little of what she would have had as the wife of Rezanov--not in himself; he was as ugly as my whiskers; but enough of the great world to satisfy many women, and no one could deny that he was good and very clever. But to Concha he was a brother--no more. Perhaps she did not even take the trouble to refuse him. It was a way she had. After a while he went home to Boston and died of the climate. I was very sorry. He was one of us. "And her intellect? Concha put it to sleep forever. She never read another book of travel, of history, biography, memoirs, essays, poetry--romance she had never read, and although some novels came to California in time she never opened them. It was peace she wanted, not the growing mind and the roving imagination. She brought her conversation down to the level of the humblest, and perhaps--who knows?--her thoughts. At all events, although the time came when she smiled again, and was often gay when we were all together in the family--particularly with the children, who came very fast, of course--well, she was then another Concha, not that brilliant dissatisfied ambitious girl we had all known, who had thought the greatest gentleman from the Viceroy's court not good enough to throw gold at her feet when she danced El Son.