DAWN AND THE DONS 130
tile roofing, gave shaded seclusion where the family spent the greater portion of the day.
The patio was a sun-flooded enclosure, gay with flowers, and filled with palms, blossoming trees and ornamental shrubs.
Giant ferns, sweet Castilian roses and
fragrant jasmine framed nooks and fairy bowers. In the center was a sparkling fountain, the drops as they reached the sun, falling back in rainbow bubbles upon the lily-pads and the moss colored water in the stone basin below, while the spray wafted a sense of delicious coolness. The garden beds were filled with flowers whose seed was brought from old Mexico; roses, pinks, holly-
hocks, sweet peas and orange lilies. No garden was considered complete without some form of cactus, usually a
sharp-thorned century plant, with a stiff, flowered stalk towering up into the blue, a straight, unbending sentinel guarding the plant world at its feet. Birds unmolested built their nests in the heavy rose-laden vines; white and yellow butterflies fluttered among Spanish bayonets; and kittens chased the sunbeams in the dappled shade of
trees. It was in the patio that the sun lingered longest, making the life within drowsy with its brightness. But the house was only a stage, set by the stage carpenter, for the acting of the drama of home, and it was in their homes that these romantic dwellers in Spanish Monterey made dreams of an ideal life come true. With them, family life was an affair of dignity and formality, interwoven with a deep and lasting affection. “There were lovely ladies, gallant gentlemen, dashing cabal-
