This Rolling Land (Serenade/Saga, No 29)

the long version

Why was she so purely delighted that he had entered her world? In an age of the decline of the Spanish dons--those elegant lords of central California during the mid-1800s--Felicidad Martines meets an Irish sea-man, Seamus Fisher. Though born in different worlds, Felicidad; her father, the don; Seamus, and others in the grandee's family must come to grips with the dying society as it makes way for a new and more democratic order. It is a last gracious moment in history; the first in a vital new era, in which all must learn the power of sacrificial love.