It had grown
to be independent of the matinees. From two o'clock to half-past five,
a solid procession of Dianas, Hebes and Junos passed and repassed along
the five blocks between Market and Powell and Sutter and Kearney--the
"line" of San Francisco slang. Along the open-front cigar stores,
characteristic of the town, gilded youth of the cocktail route gathered
in knots to watch them. There was something Latin in the spirit of this
ceremony--it resembled church parade in Buenos Ayres. Latin, too, were
the gay costumes of the women, who dressed brightly in accord with the
city and the climate. This gaiety of costume was the first thing which
the Eastern woman noticed--and disapproved. Give her a year, and she,
too, would be caught by the infection of daring dress.

In this parade of tall, deep bosomed, gleaming women, one caught the
type and longed, sometimes for the sight of a more ethereal beauty--for
the suggestion of soul within which belongs to a New England woman on
whom a hard soil has bestowed a grudged beauty--for the mobility, the
fire, which belongs to the Frenchwoman. The second generation of France
was in this crowd, it is true; but climate and exercise had grown above
their spiritual charm a cover of brilliant flesh. It was the beauty of
Greece.

With such a people, life was always gay. If the fairly Parisian gaiety
did not display itself on the streets, except in the matinee parade, it
was because the winds made open-air cafes disagreeable at all seasons of
the year. The life careless went on indoors or in the hundreds of pretty
estates--"ranches" the Californians called them--which fringe the city.

San Francisco was famous for its restaurants and cafes. Probably they
were lacking at the top; probably the very best, for people who do not
care how they spend their money, was not to be had. But they gave the
best fare on earth, for the price, at a dollar, seventy-five cents, a
half a dollar, or even fifteen cents.

If one should tell exactly what could be had at Coppa's for fifty cents
or at the Fashion for, say thirty-five, no New Yorker who has not been
there would believe it. The San Francisco French dinner and the San
Francisco free lunch were as the Public Library to Boston or the stock
yards to Chicago. A number of causes contributed to this. The
country all about produced everything that a cook needs and that in
abundance--the bay was an almost untapped fishing pound, the fruit
farms came up to