was greeted by a shower of the glittering metal flung to her
feet by enthusiastic miners. But read the second tablet," I suggested.
"It was placed there with the permission of Lotta."

"Tetrazzini!" his voice rang with surprise.

"Can you picture this place surging with people as it was on Christmas
night five years ago, when Tetrazzini sang to San Francisco?" I asked.
"The crowd began to gather long before the appointed time--the wealthy
banker from his spacious home on Pacific Heights, the grimy laborer from
the Potrero and the little newsboy with the badge of his profession
slung over his shoulder. Flushed with excitement, the courted debutante
drew back to give her place to a tired factory girl and close to the
platform an old Italian, who had tramped all the way from Telegraph
Hill, patiently waited to hear the sweet voice of his country woman.
'Tetrazzini is here,' they said to one another; Tetrazzini, who had been
discovered and adored by the people of San Francisco when, as an unknown
singer, she appeared in the old Tivoli opera house. At last she came,
wrapped in a rose-colored opera coat, and was greeted with shouts of joy
from a quarter of a million throats. She was radiant; smiling and
dimpling she waved her handkerchief with the abandonment of a child. The
storm of applause increased, rolling up the street to the very summit of
Twin Peaks. Suddenly the soft liquid notes of a clear soprano fell upon
the air, and instantly the great multitude was wrapped in silence. Out
over the heads of the people the exquisite tones floated, mounting
upward to the stars. It was the 'Last Rose of Summer,' and as she sang
her opera coat slipped from her, leaving her bare shoulders and white
filmy gown silhouetted against the sombre background. She sang again and
again, while the vast throng seemed scarcely to breathe. Then she began
the familiar strains of 'Old Lang Syne,' and at a sign, two hundred and
fifty thousand people joined in the refrain."

"There is not a city in all the world except San Francisco which could
have done such a thing," enthusiastically rejoined my companion, but the
next instant the eccentricities of the place struck him afresh.

"Furs and apple blossoms!" he exclaimed, observing a woman opposite.
"What a ridiculous combination!" Then, turning, he scrutinized me from
the top of my flower-trimmed hat to the bottom of my full skirt until my
cheeks burned with embarrassment. "Why, you have on a thin s