propose such a thing!"

"Do you think you will be able to go soon?"

"Very doubt. The Californian who leave the business for a year working
like the dog for five after. Si he find one red cent when he come back,
he is lucky. The man no knowing just where he is even when he stand over
the spot."

"Then when Helena goes, can I go to Santa Barbara for awhile and visit
aunt?"

"You no can! I no wish you ask the reason. You never go to the South!
Never before you talk so much, by Scott!"

VI

Magdalena had failed at every point. She had expected to fail, but she
felt miserable and discouraged, nevertheless. After dinner she went up
to her room and prayed to the Virgin. In time she felt comforted, her
tears ceased, and she sat thinking for some time at the foot of her
little altar. With the sad philosophy of her nature she put the
impossible from her, and considered the future. It had been arranged
long ago that she and Helena, Ila and Tiny, were to come out at the same
time; the great function which should introduce to San Francisco three
of its most beautiful girls, and its most favoured by lineage and
fortune, was to be given by Mrs. Yorba. The other girls would come out a
year earlier or later. Ila and Tiny were already in Europe. She had
three uninterrupted years before her. In those years she could do much.
When she was not studying, she would read the best authors and learn
their secret. Her father had no library, but Colonel Belmont had, and
she was a life member of the Mercantile Library; the membership had been
presented to her two birthdays ago by her luncheon guests, who respected
what they would not emulate. She pressed her face into her hands,
striving to arrange the nebulous thoughts and ambitions which burned in
her brain.

There was a wild ringing of bells. She raised her head and saw a red
glare, then rose and walked over to the window. She thought a fire very
beautiful; and as there were many in that city of wood and wind, she had
had full opportunity to observe their manifold phases. Her bedroom
adjoined the schoolroom, but was on the corner of the house at the back,
and overlooked not only the business part of the city between the foot
of the hill and the bay, but the region known as "South of Market
Street." This large valley had its aristocratic quarter, but it was now
largely given over to warehouses, depots, and streets of the poor. A
month seldom passed without a big blaze in this c