eager for the refreshment of news which seldom came to her kitchen from the far places of Alta California and the world beyond. The usual route of news was by way of the great front doors and the dining-hall, through the ears of the padres, with a word here and there which splashed over that one might pick up like a bird catching drops from a fountain. Only such news as the padres believed would not disturb the tranquillity and decorum of the mission ever passed to the kitchen and the mayordomo's quarters in the quad behind the vast building. Padres as censors of the news were most unsatisfactory creatures, as Magdalena would have told anyone who would have permitted her his ear.
It was no hard matter, either, for Magdalena to secure auditors, for she was a comely woman, with a sweet tongue in her teeth. Tall, under forty, supple and quick; her face not rounded and short in the general Spanish mold, but rather spare, as with Gipsy leanness, which lent sympathy and seriousness to her look; dark, with eyes brown and clear as polished agate, small even teeth, white as mother-of-pearl, which quickened her face like a light when she parted her serious calm lips in an unexpected smile.
Handsome, this Magdalena, to have come so far from the gaieties of life, the never-ending marvel of travelers who were so fortunate as to behold her at the kitchen door. When she served the grill, as now, she bound her smooth black hair under a red and yellow kerchief, drawing it tight
