Nowhere had the long season of flowers brought such glory as to the broad plains and slopes of Robles Rancho.

By some fortuitous chance of soil, or flood, or drifting pollen, the three terraces had each taken a distinct and separate blossom and tint of color.

The straggling line of corral, the crumbling wall of the old garden, the outlying chapel, and even the brown walls of the casa itself, were half sunken in the tall racemes of crowding lupines, until from the distance they seemed to be slowly settling in the profundity of a dark-blue sea.

The second terrace was a league-long flow of gray and gold daisies, in which the cattle dazedly wandered mid-leg deep.

A perpetual sunshine of yellow dandelions lay upon the third.