finally entered the Dominican sisterhood, where she gave the remainder of her life to the heroic and self-effacing service of her order.  Not until late in life did she have the consolation of learning — and then quite by accident — that her lover had not been false to her, but had died of a fall from his horse on his mission to win her.  Long years afterward she died, in 1857, at the convent of St. Catherine; and today, while he sleeps beneath a Greek cross in the wilds of Siberia, she is at rest beneath a Roman cross in the little Dominican cemetery at Benicia, across the Bay[13].

This history is true.  These old walls were witnesses to part of it.  These hills and dales were part of the setting for their love-drama.  One picnic was taken by boat to what is now called the Island of Belvedere yonder.  One horseback outing was taken to the picturesque canon of San Andres, so named by Captain Rivera and Father Palou in 1774.  Gertrude Atherton has given us the novel, and Bret Harte has sung the poem, founded upon it[14].

When we think of the love stories that have survived the ages, Alexander and Thais, Pericles and Aspasia, Antony and Cleopatra, and all the rest of them — some of them a narrative unfit to handle with tongs — shall we let this local story die?  Shall not America furnish a newer and purer standard?  If to such a standard Massachusetts is to contribute the Courtship of Miles Standish, may not California contribute the Courtship of Rezanov?  You men of this army post have a peculiar right to proclaim this sentiment; in such an enlistment you, of all men, would have the right to unsheathe a flaming sword.  For this memory of the comandante’s daughter is yours — yours to cherish, yours to protect.  In the barracks and on parade, at the dance and in the field, this “one sweet human fancy” belongs to this Presidio; and no court-martial nor departmental order can ever take it from you.

[Translation of Baptismal Record.]

931.  Maria Concepcion Marcela Arguello, Female Spanish Infant 65.

On the 26th day of February of the year 1791, in the church of this Mission of our Holy Patron St. Francis, I solemnly baptized a girl born on the 19th day of the said month, the legitimate daughter of Don Jose Arguello, lieutenant-captain, and commander of the neighboring royal presidio, a native of the city of Queretaro, New Spain, and of Dona Maria Ygnacia Moraga, a native of the royal presidio of El Altar, Sonora.  I gave her the names of Maria de la Concepcion Marcela.  Her godfather was Don Jose de Zuniga, lieutenant-captain and commander of the royal presidio of San Diego, by proxy, authenticated by the colonel commandant-inspector and Governor of this province, Senor Don Pedro Fages, in the presence of two witnesses, namely, Senor Manuel de Vargas, sergeant of the company of Monterey, and Juan de Dios Ballesteros, corporal of the same, delegated in due form to Manuel Baronda, corporal of the company