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"It was such luck to hear that you were in San Francisco." "But why didn't you telegraph? In a way I am disappointed glad as I am to see you. I intended to meet you at Oakland and take you directly up to Lumalitas, where everything was to have been in gala array. And how did you know I was in town?"
The log-house, or "camp," was very solid and had been built by the first James Otis, who was a mighty hunter; and the salmon-fishing in the creek, at present containing but a few feet of water, was so fine that hardly a spring had passed without a visit from the tenants of Lumalitas, who were constrained by the terms of the lease to keep the house in repair.
When Judge Leslie learned that Hiram Otis's law library had been moved out to Lumalitas he suggested that Gwynne should read at home until he had mastered the laws governing the State of California, and the student was far better satisfied out there in the quiet and the fresh air of his veranda. When a point needed expounding, a horseback ride into Rosewater was not an unwelcome diversion.
They trotted their horses for a few moments on the level and then rode down into the little valley where an unsuccessful farmer of solitary habit had some time since rented the few acres of land surrounding Mountain House, with the understanding that the best rooms were to be at the disposal of the lord of Lumalitas during the fishing and hunting seasons.
The day before the party Tom Colton and Hyliard Wheaton rode out to Lumalitas and demanded of Gwynne if he intended to wear a "claw-hammer." Colton was averse on principle from being too "swagger"; and they finally compromised on what the Americans called their "Tuxedos," and Gwynne his "smoker."
For the first time he came intimately in contact with the men of Rosewater: "leading citizens" too busy to call upon him at Lumalitas, or to sit down in their places of business for a chat during the day, and too well trained to ask strangers home for dinner, were any hospitable instincts left in them.
He had hardly pieced his impressions together as yet, but he told Isabel a little of what his subconscious ego had formulated, and she had never liked him so well as when she took his arm and they ascended into the sudden downrush of the fog. Gwynne returned to Lumalitas on the following day and Isabel moved down to Mrs. Hofer's.
I did not choose my paternal relatives, but I long since accepted them with philosophy. I am thankful to have anything. Why don't you go to California and look at your property? live on it for a few years? You could make far more out of it if you ran it yourself. The lease of Lumalitas must expire very soon. I do wish you would come and pay me a visit, and Mr. what on earth am I to call him?"
By-the-way, I think your idea of selling half or more of Lumalitas admirable. Great tracts of land in this part of the State are out of date, and more bother than they are worth, anywhere. You can invest the money to great advantage in San Francisco; but I think you should devote the rest of the ranch to chickens " "No, madam!" Gwynne turned upon her the glittering eye of an animal at bay.
Gwynne is not an uncommon name in California, although some of its letters have been dropped. Lumalitas has been leased for so many years that your name has ceased to be associated with it in the public mind, and the deeds are so deeply buried in the archives of St. Peter the county-seat that the most curious would hardly attempt to unearth them.
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