Page:My Dear Cornelia (1924).pdf/265



is a half hour's walk from Santo Espiritu to the sea.

As we went through the gate of the walled garden into the walnut grove, Cornelia patted my arm lightly, like a shy, affectionate, approving child, and said softly: "I'm so glad you came."

"And I."

"But let's not talk about that yet. Let's walk first. I do hope there will be a fine sunset. We have them here so seldom. This evening it looks right."

We walked on swiftly, chatting of nothings; through the trees; a short distance along the Santo Espiritu valley road; then up a steepish path to the tufted gopher-burrowed mesa; and across it and down it through zigzags among the sagebrush and thorny gray shrubs toward the ocean, over which hung a dull gray curtain of cloud. There was nothing bright in the scene but the "bluebird gown" of Cornelia, flitting down the gray-lichened slope ahead of me. But the dull blue expanse of the sea brightened a little