I. We are dancing to the
tune of the unseen forces. They will do the thinking. I wonder,
by-the-way, if deep down in the brain of that fleeing ruined tide of
elemental beings there is not a prick of gratified vanity that they are
in the midst of a great and horrible experience? We have been reading so
much lately of the horrors in Russia, we have read, all our lives, of
horrors and atrocities somewhere, and this State has grinned at us so
unintermittently. Now we, too, are actors in a great life-and-death
drama. I don't fancy any one is doing even that much analysis, but I
can't help thinking that the vague appreciation of the fact sustains
them in a way--possibly gives them a calm sense of superiority to the
rest of the world----Look at this."

They had reached Jackson Street on the flat of Nob Hill. It was now
evening and the exodus from Chinatown had begun. The Mongolians were
streaming up from their threatened quarter, and, like the others,
tramping silently out to the Presidio. The merchants had put on their
fine clothes, and their families--exposed to the Occidental eye for the
first time--wore gorgeous garments of bright silks covered with
embroideries. The poor little respectable wives tottered along on their
foolish feet, held up by their lords or their "big-footed"
serving-women, while their children trudged along uncomplainingly and
stared at the fire with big expressionless eyes. Mingling freely with
the wealthy autocrats of Chinatown were the coolies, and the
disreputable women with which the quarter swarmed. The Chinese rarely
import their wives. The coolies wore their blue blouses and soft felt
hats, and the women had painted their faces and built up their hair as
usual, shining tower-like coiffures stuck with large-lobed pins, cheap
or costly, according to their grade. All were as stolid as their own
wooden gods. They would have looked like a solemn procession on a festa
day had it not been for the bundles and strong-chests they carried.

"Come up to dinner, such as it is," said Isabel, to Anne. "What are you
going to do to-night?"

"Camp down in the sand-lots by Fort Mason and see what I can do for
those poor refugees. There will be great suffering, I am afraid. Many
women should be in hospital with every attention; and with all this
excitement who knows what may happen? I fancy either a tent-hospital
will be erected, or the worst cases will be taken into the fort. I am a
good nurse, and I told the