186 WITH THE FLOWERS AND TREES 



sailors, and some of whom for their service to the 

 Spanish king were paid off a century or so ago in 

 grants of land. Why, Dona Margarita's father, old 

 Don Miguel, owned three leagues square on the out- 

 skirts of Los Angeles, and if he could have held on 

 to it her family would have been millionaires ; but, 

 Lord, it all went long ago for interest and taxes, 

 and to-day the old lady only owns her adobe and a 

 few sticks of furniture." 



After a little preliminary shyness and indisposi- 

 tion to talk anything but Spanish, which I under- 

 stood but imperfectly and spoke worse, Dona Mar- 

 garita's innate hospitality took command of her and 

 she dropped into English and cordially invited me 

 in. It was an unkempt bit of garden, without grace 

 of arrangement, but amazingly full of flowers rem- 

 iniscent of the olden time. 



"Yes, senor," said the little old lady, "it is al- 

 ways las flores de antes the old time flowers that 

 grow best for me ; the new kind, I don 't know why, 

 but they do not grow. Now this ' ' and we stopped 

 before a robust rose bush, rather coarse of leaf, 

 bearing tousled pink blooms that were very fra- 

 grant, such an old, old-fashioned rose as modern 

 gardens with their dapper French aristocrats would 

 not tolerate "now this is the Castilian rose, la 

 rosa de Castilla. In old times this was the most 



