e moved hesitatingly toward the door, "that
Spencer has made himself easy and secure in them business risks he's
taking. That 'ere Alameda ditch affair they're talking so much about is
a mighty big thing, rather _too_ big if it ever got to falling back on
him. But I suppose he's accustomed to take risks?"

"Of course he is," said Mrs. Tucker gayly. "He married _me_."

The visitor smiled feebly, but was not equal to the opportunity offered
for gallant repudiation. "But suppose _you_ ain't accustomed to risks?"

"Why not? I married _him_," said Mrs. Tucker.

Mr. Calhoun Weaver was human, and succumbed to this last charming
audacity. He broke into a noisy but genuine laugh, shook Mrs. Tucker's
hand with effusion, said, "Now that's regular Blue Grass and no
mistake!" and retreated under cover of his hilarity. In the hall he
made a rallying stand to repeat confidentially to the servant who had
overheard them, "Blue Grass all over, you bet your life," and, opening
the door, was apparently swallowed up in the tempest.

Mrs. Tucker's smile kept her lips until she had returned to her room,
and even then languidly shone in her eyes for some minutes after, as
she gazed abstractedly from her window on the storm-tossed bay in the
distance. Perhaps some girlish vision of the peaceful Blue Grass plain
momentarily usurped the prospect; but it is to be doubted if there was
much romance in that retrospect, or that it was more interesting to her
than the positive and sharply cut outlines of the practical life she
now led. Howbeit she soon forgot this fancy in lazily watching a boat
that, in the teeth of the gale, was beating round Alcatraz Island.
Although at times a mere blank speck on the gray waste of foam, a
closer scrutiny showed it to be one of those lateen-rigged Italian
fishing-boats that so often flecked the distant bay. Lost in the sudden
darkening of rain, or reappearing beneath the lifted curtain of the
squall, she watched it weather the island, and then turn its laboring
but persistent course toward the open channel. A rent in the
Indian-inky sky, that showed the narrowing portals of the Golden Gate
beyond, revealed, as unexpectedly, the destination of the little craft,
a tall ship that hitherto lay hidden in the mist of the Saucelito
shore. As the distance lessened between boat and ship, they were again
lost in the downward swoop of another squall. When it lifted, the ship
was creeping under the headland towards the open