How Sealman was going to pay the bill he did not
know. Would Mrs. May go to Santa Catalina Island this morning, and to
Riverside to-morrow? There was time to catch the boat.
The doctor's bill was a trump card. Angela consented to wait for
Riverside, and she took Kate to that fair island loved by Californians,
and by fishermen all over the world.
The name Avalon alone would have lured her; for who would not set sail for
Avalon at a moment's notice?
Santa Catalina is Corsica in miniature, Corsica without Napoleon or
vendetta. But it has sea-gardens, fathoms deep under green water, where
flowers bloom and fish glitter in a dazzle of jewelled armour beneath the
glass floors of flat-bottomed boats. The fishermen were catching
yellow-tail that day, too, just as Franklin Merriam had caught them in his
time; and his daughter went back to Los Angeles full of thoughts of him.
To-morrow was to be held sacred to her father's memory; for his old home,
vanished off the face of the earth now, had been near Riverside. Angela
wanted the day to be perfect, unmarred by trouble or vexation; and though
she had her fears, when morning came the Model started off so well that
hope began to rise.
Making a detour, they spun past the old Mission San Gabriel, where she had
arrived ignominiously by trolley four days ago; and turning for a look at
the facade, Angela saw a yellow car drawn up in the fleecy shadow of a
pepper-tree.
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