She was a singular-looking girl, this compound of Scotch and Spanish. Her face was cast in her father's hard mould, and her frame was large and sturdy, but she had the black luxuriant hair of Spain, and much grace of gesture and expression. "I would not marry an Englishman," said a soft voice. Francisca raised her eyebrows and glanced coldly at the speaker, a girl of perfect loveliness, who sat behind a table, her chin resting on her clasped hands. "Thou wouldst marry whom our father told thee to marry, Elena," said her sister, severely. "What hast thou to say about it?" "I will marry a Spaniard," said Elena, rebelliously. "A Spaniard, and no other." "Thou wilt do what?" asked a cold voice from the door. The girls gave a little scream. Elena turned pale, even Francisca's hands twitched. Doña Jacoba was an impressive figure as she stood in the doorway; a tall unbowed woman with a large face and powerful penetrating eyes. A thin mouth covering white teeth separated the prominent nose and square chin. A braid of thick black hair lay over her fine bust, and a black silk handkerchief made a turban for her lofty head. She wore a skirt of heavy black silk and a shawl of Chinese crêpe, one end thrown gracefully over her shoulder. "What didst thou say?" she demanded again, a sneer on her lips. Elena made no answer. She stared through the window at the servants laying the table in the dining room on the other side of the court, her breath shortening as if the room had been exhausted of air. "Let me hear no more of that nonsense," continued her mother. "A strange remark, truly, to come from the lips of a Californian! Thy father has said that his daughters shall marry men of his race--men who belong to that island of the North; and I have agreed, and thy sisters are well married. No women are more virtuous, more industrious, more religious, than ours; but our men--our young men--are a set of drinking gambling vagabonds. Go to thy room and pray there until supper." Elena ran out of an opposite door, and Doña Jacoba sat down on a high-backed chair and held out her hand for the wedding-gown. She examined it, then smiled brilliantly. "The lace is beautiful," she said. "There is no richer in California, and I have seen Doña Trinidad Iturbi y Moncada's and Doña Modeste Castro's. Let me see thy mantilla once more." Francisca opened a chest nearly as large as her bed, and shook out a long square of superb Spanish lace. It had arrived from the city of Mexico but a few days before. The girls clapped their admiring hands, as if they had not looked at it twenty times, and Doña Jacoba smoothed it tenderly with her strong hands. Then she went over to the chest and lifted the beautiful silk and crêpe gowns, one by one, her sharp eyes detecting no flaw. She opened another chest and examined the piles of underclothing and bed linen, all of finest woof, and deeply bordered with the drawn work of Spain.