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But Rezanov had not come to California on the impulse of a moment. He replied suavely: "There you are mistaken. Your illustrious father, Don Jose Mario de Arguello, is well known to us as the most respected, eminent and influential character in the Californias.
Stearns, now a very old man, and met there Don Juan Bandini, to whom I had given a good deal of notice in my book. From him, as indeed from every one in this town, I met with the kindest attentions. The wife of Don Juan, who was a beautiful young girl when we were on the coast, Doña Refugio, daughter of Don Santiago Argüello, the commandante of San Diego, was with him, and still handsome.
Whatever Tomas thought of this roundabout way of making interest, he failed not to thank the innkeeper, and to assure him that he was confident his master would readily send the requisite money. Argüello, who had seen her new flame in the hands of the officers, ran directly to the prison with some dinner for him; but she was not permitted to see him.
Spain, and later Mexico, looked with disfavor and suspicion upon the Russian settlement, but the people of California were always ready for secret trade with their northern neighbors. In 1816 Otto von Kotzebue, captain of the Russian ship Rurik, visited San Francisco and was entertained by the comandante, Lieutenant Luis Arguello. With Captain Kotzebue was the German poet, Albert von Chamisso.
To-night she would be an old-time belle: as Concha Argüello had been just a century ago, as Guadalupe Hathaway, Mrs. Hunt McLane, Nina Randolph, and "The Three Macs," had been in the city's youth; as Helena Belmont had been but twenty years before. She recalled the oft-told story of the night of Mrs.
Miss Woods and Miss Arguello have accepted an invitation to spend a few days at the villa of the Baron and Baroness von Schilprecht an hour or two from here." He lingered over the title with an odd mingling of impressiveness and inquiry, and glanced at Paul.
It is a piece of Spain translated to a more luscious, a lovelier land, overlooking beautiful seas and perilous. Into the dolce far niente Rezanov enters with some surrender to its softening spell, but with the courtier's prudence. And he meets the girl, Concha Arguello.
Poor Rosa did not sing, although the spring attuned her broken spirit to a gentler melancholy than when the winds howled and the fog was cold in her marrow. She had been sentenced by the last Governor, the wise Borica, to eight years of domestic servitude in the house of Don Jose Arguello for abetting her lover in the murder of his wife.
It seemed to the governor that the man who was to be son-in-law in the powerful family of Arguello could not be considered as a foreigner, and therefore the law need not apply in his case. Thus the Count got his ship load of food and sailed away, promising to return as soon as possible for his betrothed wife.
Arguello impulsively led Rezanov back to the gates and pointed to the east. "I have crossed those mountains and the mountains beyond, Excellency, and seen fertile and beautiful valleys of a vast extent, watered by five rivers and bound far, far away by mountains covered with snow and gigantic trees.
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