"But, my dear young lady," he expostulated,
"you need only pay a fourth of the money down. Six dollars and a quarter
is enough."

"Oh," said Inez, "then I could have bought more, couldn't I!" She turned
to Brannan, eagerly. "I could have bought four lots--if I'd only known."

Brannan smiled at her. Then he turned to the crowd. "What d'ye say,
boys, shall we let her have 'em?" he inquired. Instantly the answer
came: "Yes, yes, give her the four. God bless her. She'll bring
us luck."

Impulsively, Inez mounted the platform; astonished at her own temerity,
at the exuberance of some new freedom, springing from the barriers of a
shielded life, she shouted at these strange, rough men about her: "Thank
you, gentlemen!" Then her mother's look of horrified, surprise brought a
sudden red into her cheeks. She turned and fled. Her father smiled,
indulgently; Anita's frown changed presently into a look of whimsical,
perplexed affection. "I am always forgetting, Inez mia," she said,
softly, "that this is a new day--the day of the Americano."

She watched Benito shouting bids at the side of Adrian, vying with such
men as Howard, Mellus, Clark and Leidesdorff in the quest for lots.
"Fifty of them have been sold already," Windham told her. "The auction
will last three days because there are four hundred more."

Suddenly, Anita Windham put forth a hand and touched that of her
husband. "Buy one, for me, Roberto," she pleaded.

"But--" he hesitated, "Anita carissima, what will you do with a
rectangle of mire in this rough, unsettled place?"

"For sentiment," she answered, softly, "in memory of my father, who had
such abundant faith in San Francisco.... And, perhaps, Don Samuel is
right. We may yet bless his name."

* * * * *

The summer of 1847 had passed. Inez Windham was the wife of Adrian
Stanley. He had given up his school for larger matters. Every day his
ox-teams struggled over sandy bottoms to the tune of snapping whips and
picturesque profanity by Indian drivers. Men with shovels leveling the
sand hills, piled the wagons high with shimmering white grains which
were carried to the shore and dumped into pile-surrounded bogs till the
tides left them high and dry. San Francisco reached farther and farther
into the bay, wresting irregular nooks and corners from the
ebbing-flowing waters, building rickety, improvised piers, sometimes
washed out by the northers which unexpectedly came down with te