the canada, cleared and strengthened in their solitude, dripped along
the trails and hollows that were now transformed into running streams.
The distinguishing madrono near the entrance to the rancho had changed
its crimson summer suit and masqueraded in buff and green.
Yet there were leaden days, when half the prospect seemed to be seen
through palisades of rain; when the slight incline between the terraces
became a tumultuous cascade, and the surest hoofs slipped on trails of
unctuous mud; when cattle were bogged a few yards from the highway, and
the crossing of the turnpike road was a dangerous ford. There were
days of gale and tempest, when the shriveled stalks of giant oats were
stricken like trees, and lay across each other in rigid angles, and
a roar as of the sea came up from the writhing treetops in the sunken
valley. There were long weary nights of steady downpour, hammering
on the red tiles of the casa, and drumming on the shingles of the
new veranda, which was more terrible to be borne. Alone, but for the
servants, and an occasional storm-stayed tenant from Fair Plains,
Clarence might have, at such times, questioned the effect of this
seclusion upon his impassioned nature. But he had already been
accustomed to monastic seclusion in his boyish life at El Refugio, and
he did not reflect that, for that very reason, its indulgences might
have been dangerous. From time to time letters reached him from the
outer world of San Francisco,--a few pleasant lines from Mrs. Peyton, in
answer to his own chronicle of his half stewardship, giving the news of
the family, and briefly recounting their movements. She was afraid that
Susy's sensitive nature chafed under the restriction of mourning in the
gay city, but she trusted to bring her back for a change to Robles when
the rains were over. This was a poor substitute for those brief, happy
glimpses of the home circle which had so charmed him, but he accepted
it stoically. He wandered over the old house, from which the perfume
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