United States or Cook Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
When her husband, in common with other distinguished citizens, bought an estate in the San Mateo Valley, she named it Rincona, to the secret wrath of other eminent ladies who had not thought of it in time.
All that he had to strive for now was his million or millions. When he had half a million he would build a house at Burlingame that could be enlarged from time to time. Only with the "Rincona crowd" he had made no headway.
The Abbott's place, Rincona, stood on a foothill behind the other estates of Alta and surrounded by a park of two hundred acres set thick with magnificent oaks. Gathbroke had never seen finer ones in England or France. Gwynne before entering the avenue drove to an elevation above the house and stopped the car for a moment.
He had asked himself one day it was his last in California and he had taken his courage in his teeth and was on his way to call on Gora Dwight at last, picking his steps through, the still smoking ruins down to Van Ness Avenue whether it would be possible for any man to suffer twice in a lifetime as he had suffered since that hideous moment at Rincona, coming as it did on top of an uncommon and terrible experience that had racked his nerves and soul as it might not have done had he been seasoned by war or even a few years older.
Her alert ear detected the deeper and less steady note in Gora's always hoarse voice. "It is the same. Did you meet him?...Oh, I remember he told me he met you at the Hofer ball. He rather raved over you, in fact." "Did he? How sweet of him. I met him again, I remember. Mr. Gwynne brought him down to Rincona one day." "Oh?" And Alexina, knew that he had never mentioned that visit.
Once a flush of shame overspread the governor's face, but he recovered himself promptly, and listened with a bitter smile till the end. "You shall eat your words if not your heart," he exclaimed brutally; and turning to an officer, he added, "Rincona, bring in your men and the heaviest irons that can be found in the prison."
It was doubtful if he enjoyed similarly his first visit to Rincona during their engagement: after all the powwow was over and the family had grimly surrendered to avoid the scandal of an elopement. Alexina recalled that dreadful day. Groome. All these were as one united family.
Finally he commanded her to leave town, and she made a round of visits. She spent a fortnight at Rincona, Mrs. Abbott's place at Alta, in the San Mateo valley, and another with the Hathaways near by. Then, after a fortnight at the different "Springs" she settled down for the rest of the summer on the Ballinger ranch in the Santa Clara valley.
Santiago smiled scornfully; but José, pushing forward, said quietly, "You cannot do that, señor. This man is my prisoner, for whom I am responsible to Colonel Miller alone. Until the return of the colonel, therefore, I cannot let him go from my keeping." For a moment Rincona hesitated, but at the governor's second command he left the room, while the other officers clustered round their chief.
But he had been unable to find a messenger, there was no post; and then, after his ill-starred visit to Rincona, he had forgotten her until his final visit to the undertaker; when she had seemed to stand, an indignant and reproachful figure, at the head of the casket. He had a note in his pocket and hoped she would be out.
Word Of The Day