s sinking into the sea, with its Midas touch turning the
water and sky to molten gold. The last rays gilded the cliffs on either
side of the entrance to the bay, and burnished the heads of the nodding
poppies at our feet. From the Presidio came the muffled boom of the
sunset gun.

"Could Fremont have chosen a better name?" exclaimed the man at my side.
"The Golden Gate it is, indeed!"

"It certainly is well named," I agreed, "for everyone can interpret its
meaning according to his mood and character. Some see only what Fremont
saw, an open door to commerce; to others it is the entrance to hoards of
gold, stowed away in hills and streams; to the poet it speaks of the
golden poppies that streak the hillsides, but I like to think of it as
did the Indians, who called it 'Yulupa,' the Sunset Strait."

Silently we watched the lights of the city come out, one by one, until
it seemed as if the heavens lay beneath us.

"I hoped when I left Boston that you would return with me," he said
gently, "but I can't ask you to leave this. I didn't understand then,
but now--"

The lights became blurred and the night seemed suddenly to have grown
cold.

"Of course, you couldn't be happy--"

The voice did not sound like his. I had been in a dream for two days. I
had thought he cared just as I did, but he couldn't, or he would realize
that nothing counted but--I bit my lips to keep from crying out.

"Boston is too cold for a girl with the warmth of California in her
heart."

Cold! Didn't he know that life with him would make an iceberg paradise?
Didn't he realize--? But, of course, he didn't care as I did! This was
only a subterfuge. I straightened proudly.

"I can't ask you to go back with me," he was saying, "but I can stay
here with you." His hand crept over mine. "Our business needs a manager
on this coast. Will you help me make a home in San Francisco, dear?"

Below, the lights of the city danced with happiness and a glad new song
rang in my heart.

Here ends 'The Lure of San Francisco. A Romance Amid Old Landmarks."
Written by Elizabeth Gray Potter and Mabel Thayer Gray and Illustrated
from Sketches in Charcoal by Audley B. Wells. Done into a book by Paul
Elder and Company at their Tomoye Press in San Francisco under the
supervision and care of H. A. Funke, in July, Nineteen Hundred and
Fifteen.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lure of San Francisco
by Elizabeth Gray Potter and Mabel Thayer Gray