noon
Addressing herself to the care of her narrow household , she mechanically put away the few things she had brought with her , and began to read just the scant furniture . She was a little discomposed at first at the absence of bolts , locks , and even window-fastenings until assured , by Concha 's evident inability to comprehend her concern , that they were quite unknown at Los Cuervos . Her slight knowledge of Spanish was barely sufficient to make her wants known , so that the relief of conversation with her only companion was debarred her , and she was obliged to content herself with the sapless , crackling smiles and withered genuflexions that the old woman dropped like dead leaves in her path . It was staring noon when , the house singing like an empty shell in the monotonous wind , she felt she could stand the solitude no longer , and , crossing the glaring _ patio _ and whistling corridor , made her way to the open gateway . But the view without seemed to intensify her desolation . The broad expanse of the shadowless plain reached apparently to the Coast Range , trackless and unbroken save by one or two clusters of dwarfed oaks , which at that distance were but mossy excrescences on the surface , barely raised above the dead level . On the other side the marsh took up the monotony and carried it , scarcely interrupted by undefined water-courses , to the faintly marked-out horizon line of the remote bay .