CHAPTER XX.

In Southern California that part of the year extending from the middle of November to the middle of May virtually represents to the stranger its season.

The secret of the delightful summer, tempered, especially in the San Gabriel Valley and the vicinity of Santa Barbara, by unfailing sea-breezes, would astonish the infidel tourist who has flown excitedly away, stubbornly denouncing the summer as unbearable. Perhaps he has experienced two or three warm days in May that have played a trick on the tardy trade winds. If so, he comprehends perfectly, from a few weeks' sojourn, the imminent danger of climatic cremation.

He believes, ignorantly, that he has fled from the mid tropics, when he mops the damp perspiration from his gigantic brain-front in the dizzy June of an interior town. Devoutly thanking the kind Providence that has returned him to Tuckersville, he proceeds to write for the Tuckersville _Sun_ full particulars relating to the climate and limited resources of Southern California.

Still, contrary to the slanders of the Tuckersville man, the weather, with the exception of a few warm days in the early spring, remains delightfully cool from the middle of April until the middle of August.

September is possibly less agreeable, for it is then that people are apt to believe themselves tired or warm, and there is a general wishing for change.

In the sweet, quiet summer, one wishes for nothing.

Refreshing breezes from the broad Pacific extend inland for many miles, and if occasional warm days come, the coast is near by, always inviting for a day those who do not care to stay long by the sea, or cannot afford a protracted outing.

For those who desire weeks of recreation and salt bathing, the Pacific coast offers every advantage. On the irresistible Santa Catalina Island, at the pleasant hotels that dot the coast, or in the poor man's sequestered cañon close to the sea, there are opportunities of rest and enjoyment for all.

To the resident of the San Gabriel Valley, who truly loves its grand, natural beauty enough to enjoy the free gifts of each day, there is about the summer a never-ending sense of peace and rest.

The winter months are restless and rushing--full of social excitement and alive with indefatigable sight-seers. As long as the tourist is abroad in the land his presence is a perpetual challenge. His disappointments are personally felt each day by his friends.

It is unfortunate that much of the picturesque hospitality of earlier days should have given way to a more laborious and less charming mode of entertaining. Now, the Marthas of pretentious country houses and elegant villas are "cumbered about much serving."

I had fortunately escaped both convention and routine in my life with the Doña Maria Del Valle, but I had been drawn by degrees into an experience that, from the beginning, was an anxious strain. I was now almost ill; I needed a change and the sea.

Yet I dared not desert Mariposilla, for I felt daily the burden of the