gs even more out of place than usual. The young
Californian wrinkled his mouth scornfully over it. But soon they drove
out upon a new bridge that bound the two parts of the city together
where the breeze came in across the water gayly. The mason was specially
pleased with the tunnel through which the surface cars disappeared into
the bowels of the city. That was some good, he said, and added that they
did not have it in California. "But we don't need it yet--we aren't so
crowded out there," he explained. He did not think much of the tall
buildings they encountered on their route. They had better ones in
"'Frisco," and had he not seen New York? His attitude towards this home
of his forefathers was mildly tolerant. If the issue had been put to him
squarely, he would never have exchanged his free California inheritance
for his share of Clark's Field! He seemed to think better of his
grandfather for having shaken the dust of Alton from his scornful feet.
That was exactly what he himself would have done if it had been his
misfortune to belong to the younger branch of the family. But in that
case, perhaps, he would not have had the courage to brave the unknown!

Adelle from her corner of the carriage silently followed this in her
cousin's expressive face. She saw that it all seemed small to him,
petty, planned on a little scale.

"Give me the Coast!" he said when at last they reached the famous Square
of Alton, which was now little more than the intersection of three noisy
streets, and turned up the old South Road. That simple expression meant
volumes as she knew. It expressed the love of freedom, vigor,
simplicity, natural manhood, the longing for the large, fresh face of
Nature, where the hopeful soul of man is ready to meet his destiny by
himself, unpropped by his ancestors and relatives. There was an echo in
her own soul to this primitive lyric cry,--"Give me the Coast!"

(Need we explain that to the true son of California there is but one
"Coast" in all the world?)

The old judge smiled sympathetically in response to the cry. Evidently
he liked the young man, for he was at great pains to point out to him
everything of interest and to explain certain historic monuments that
they passed.

Alton had never been notable as a place of residence even in Adelle's
childhood, but now it was almost completely converted to industrial
uses. The stove factory had grown like a tropic plant, and had spawned
about itself a number of