s, and
Wingates, were there bourgeoning and expanding in the glare of their new
prosperity, with silk and gold; there were newer faces still, and pretty
ones,--for Tasajara as a "Cow County" had attracted settlers with large
families,--and there were already the contrasting types of East and
West. Many turned to look after the tall figure of the daughter of the
Founder of Tasajara,--a spectacle lately rare to the town; a few glanced
at her companion, equally noticeable as a stranger. Thanks, however, to
some judicious preliminary advertising from the hotel clerk, Peters, and
Daniel Harcourt himself, by the time Grant and Miss Harcourt had reached
the Hall his name and fame were already known, and speculation had
already begun whether this new stroke of Harcourt's shrewdness might not
unite Clementina to a renowned and profitable partner.

The Hall was in one of the further and newly opened suburbs, and its
side and rear windows gave immediately upon the outlying and illimitable
plain of Tasajara. It was a tasteful and fair-seeming structure of wood,
surprisingly and surpassingly new. In fact that was its one dominant
feature; nowhere else had youth and freshness ever shown itself
as unconquerable and all-conquering. The spice of virgin woods and
trackless forests still rose from its pine floors, and breathed from its
outer shell of cedar that still oozed its sap, and redwood that still
dropped its life-blood. Nowhere else were the plastered walls and
ceilings as white and dazzling in their unstained purity, or as redolent
of the outlying quarry in their clear cool breath of lime and stone.
Even the turpentine of fresh and spotless paint added to this sense
of wholesome germination, and as the clear and brilliant Californian
sunshine swept through the open windows west and east, suffusing the
whole palpitating structure with its searching and resistless radiance,
the very air seemed filled with the aroma of creation.

The fresh colors of the young Republic, the bright blazonry of the
newest State, the coat-of-arms of the infant County of Tasajara--(a
vignette of sunset-tules cloven by the steam of an advancing
train)--hanging from the walls, were all a part of this invincible
juvenescence. Even the newest silks, ribbons and prints of the latest
holiday fashions made their first virgin appearance in the new building
as if to consecrate it, until it was stirred by the rustle of youth, as
with the sound and movement of bud