king along quite harmlessly, with the talkative negro after her.
It would have been below me to pursue the subject, and I waited for
others to re-open it; but I heard no more about her until I had been
for more than a week at sea, and was able again to feel interest. Then I
heard that her name was Annie Banks, of the firm of Heniker, Banks, and
Co., who owned the ship I sailed in.

But now it was nothing to me who she was, or how beautiful, or how
wealthy, when I clung for the last time to Uncle Sam, and implored him
not to forget me. Over and over again he promised to be full of thoughts
of me, even when the new mill was started, which would be a most trying
time. He bowed his tall white head into my sheveled hair, and blessed
and kissed me, although I never deserved it, and a number of people were
looking on. Then I laid my hand in Firm's, and he did not lift it to his
lips, or sigh, but pressed it long and softly, and looked into my eyes
without a word. And I knew that there would be none to love like them,
wherever I might go.

But the last of all to say "good-by" was my beloved Jowler. He jumped
into the boat after me (for we were obliged to have a boat, the ship
having laden further down), and he put his fore-paws on my shoulders,
and whined and drooped his under-jaw. And when he looked at me as he
used, to know whether I was in fun or earnest, with more expression in
his bright brown eyes than any human being has, I fell back under his
weight and sobbed, and could not look at any one.

We had beautiful weather, and the view was glorious, as we passed the
Golden Gate, the entrance to what will one day be the capital of the
world, perhaps. For, as our captain said, all power and human energy and
strength are always going westward, and when they come here they must
stop, or else they would be going eastward again, which they never yet
have done. His argument may have been right or wrong--and, indeed, it
must have been one or the other--but who could think of such things now,
with a grander thing than human power--human love fading away behind? I
could not even bear to see the glorious mountains sinking, but ran below
and cried for hours, until all was dark and calm.

The reason for my sailing by this particular ship, and, indeed, rather
suddenly, was that an old friend and Cornish cousin of Mr. Gundry, who
had spent some years in California, was now returning to England by the
Bridal Veil. This was Major Hockin,