The dust that had muffled the roads and byways, and choked the low oaks that fringed the sunken canada, had long since been laid.

The warm, moist breath of the southwest trades had softened the hard, dry lines of the landscape, and restored its color as of a picture over which a damp sponge had been passed.

The broad expanse of plateau before the casa glistened and grew dark.

The hidden woods of the canada, cleared and strengthened in their solitude, dripped along the trails and hollows that were now transformed into running streams.
The distinguishing madrono near the entrance to the rancho had changed its crimson summer suit and masqueraded in buff and green.
Yet there were leaden days, when half the prospect seemed to be seen through palisades of rain; when the slight incline between the terraces became a tumultuous cascade, and the surest hoofs slipped on trails of unctuous mud; when cattle were bogged a few yards from the highway, and the crossing of the turnpike road was a dangerous ford.

There were days of gale and tempest, when the shriveled stalks of giant oats were stricken like trees, and lay across each other in rigid angles, and a roar as of the sea came up from the writhing treetops in the sunken valley.