walked--climbed--through the
city, guided a part of the way by a messenger-boy, who ejaculated at
intervals, 'Say, mister!' and described Nob Hill as the 'millionaire
bunch,' that I had seldom seen so many ugly buildings together; but from
this perch of yours it looks quite beautiful. Still I long for the
country. Can we go to the ranch this afternoon?"

"Why not?" Isabel stifled a sigh. She had intended to ride all round the
city on the electric cars; but she felt as if she had an adopted
homesick child on her hands, and he was a responsibility that she had
deliberately assumed. Moreover, she felt deeply sorry for him.

"You can express all your luggage but a portmanteau, and we will go in
my launch. It is down on the bay side of the Hill. We must start at four
to catch the tide. You have no idea how cosey and pretty your
ranch-house looks, and I have sent out my uncle's law--and
farm--library. I have arranged everything with Judge Leslie, and you
enter his office at once. He is the first lawyer of northern
California. I wrote you that it would be impossible to conceal the truth
from him, as his firm has done all the legal business of the estate for
the last thirty years, and he knows your mother has only one son. But he
is the more interested. No one else knows but Mr. Colton and his son
Tom--your Rosewater bankers and agents. Your secret is safe with them.
Gwynne is not an uncommon name in California, although some of its
letters have been dropped. Lumalitas has been leased for so many years
that your name has ceased to be associated with it in the public mind,
and the deeds are so deeply buried in the archives of St. Peter--the
county-seat--that the most curious would hardly attempt to unearth them.
Of course most townspeople all through the State take in a San Francisco
paper, and your name has doubtless appeared now and again in the
telegrams. But they are not the sort that take the least interest in the
career of a young Englishman--those that do, at all events, are few and
far between. Judge Leslie is deeply interested; so is Tom Colton, the
only son of the bank, so to speak. He is a Democrat, by-the-way--but I
don't suppose you have made up your mind--"

"I have quite made up my mind. In practice one party seems about as bad
as the other, but at least the Democratic ideals more nearly correspond
with my own. Besides, the Democratic party is the under dog, and that
always appeals to me, to say nothing of the