For two months she was dazzled and bewildered
with color. She had never before been face to face with this
spendthrift Californian Flora, in her virgin wastefulness, her more
than goddess-like prodigality. The teeming earth seemed to quicken and
throb beneath her feet; the few circuits of a plow around the outlying
corral was enough to call out a jungle growth of giant grain that
almost hid the low walls of the _hacienda_. In this glorious fecundity
of the earth, in this joyous renewal of life and color, in this opulent
youth and freshness of soil and sky, it alone remained, the dead and
sterile Past, left in the midst of buoyant rejuvenescence and
resurrection, like an empty churchyard skull upturned on the springing
turf. Its bronzed adobe walls mocked the green vine that embraced them,
the crumbling dust of its courtyard remained ungerminating and
unfruitful; to the thousand; stirring voices without, its dry lips
alone remained mute, unresponsive, and unchanged.
During this time Don Jose had become a frequent visitor at Los Cuervos,
bringing with him at first his niece and sister in a stately precision
of politeness that was not lost on the proud Blue Grass stranger.
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