clivity of fashion known as Rincon Hill, and
sunned itself on a southern slope of luxury. It had been described
as "princely" and "fairy-like," by a grateful reporter; tourists and
travelers had sung its praises in letters to their friends and in
private reminiscences, for it had dispensed hospitality to most of the
celebrities who had visited the coast. Nevertheless its charm was mainly
due to the ruling taste of Miss Clementina Harcourt, who had astonished
her father by her marvelous intuition of the nice requirements and
elegant responsibilities of their position; and had thrown her mother
into the pained perplexity of a matronly hen, who, among the ducks' eggs
intrusted to her fostering care, had unwittingly hatched a graceful but
discomposing cygnet.

Indeed, after holding out feebly against the siege of wealth at Tasajara
and San Francisco, Mrs. Harcourt had abandoned herself hopelessly to
the horrors of its invasion; had allowed herself to be dragged from her
kitchen by her exultant daughters and set up in black silk in a certain
conventional respectability in the drawing-room. Strange to say, her
commiserating hospitality, or hospital-like ministration, not only gave
her popularity, but a certain kind of distinction. An exaltation
so sorrowfully deprecated by its possessor was felt to be a sign of
superiority. She was spoken of as "motherly," even by those who vaguely
knew that there was somewhere a discarded son struggling in poverty
with a helpless wife, and that she had sided with her husband in
disinheriting a daughter who had married unwisely. She was sentimentally
spoken of as a "true wife," while never opposing a single meanness of
her husband, suggesting a single active virtue, nor questioning her
right to sacrifice herself and her family for his sake. With nothing
she cared to affect, she was quite free from affectation, and even the
critical Lawrence Grant was struck with the dignity which her narrow
simplicity, that had seemed small even in Sidon, attained in her
palatial hall in San Francisco. It appeared to be a perfectly logical
conclusion that when such unaffectedness and simplicity were forced to
assume a hostile attitude to anybody, the latter must be to blame.

Since the festival of Tasajara Mr. Grant had been a frequent visitor
at Harcourt's, and was a guest on the eve of his departure from San
Francisco. The distinguished position of each made their relations
appear quite natural without inc