ad opened so
many gates for the irruption of overburdened femininity. But he merely
remarked:

"I am suddenly inspired With a desire to see San Francisco. Are you too
busy? Are we too late for the tide?"

"Just in time," said Isabel, promptly; "and I shall be ready as soon as
the launch is. Do you know that it is Saturday? You could not have
chosen a better day."

* * * * *

As they pushed off, all the marsh and its creek was covered with a low
white mist that gave it the appearance of a great lake, a ghost lake
through which the little steamer just leaving Rosewater two miles above
coiled its way like a monstrous white bird feeling uneasily for a
foothold. Overhead the sky was covered with the pink fleece of dawn. The
mass of mountains in Marin County looked black and formless, but above
them rose the granite crest of Tamalpais, like an angular lifted
shoulder.

"That mountain has marched north five feet in the last forty years,"
said Isabel, as she carefully steered through the mist. "Either that, or
the earthquake of 1868 moved her off her base."

"For heaven's sake don't tell me any more weird tales about this
country; it gives me the horrors often enough as it is. This morning the
hills and mountain on the other side of the valley looked like
antediluvian monsters just ready to turn over."

"Well, they have turned over a few times, and may again. One reason we
all love California is because we never know what she will do next, and
because she is still primeval under this thin coat of civilization that
is too tight for her. I admire England, but I could not live in it. It
is too peaceful, too done. It is impossible to imagine any further
change, for civilization can go no further. But out here--the whole
country may stand on its head any day; and we may yet have cities as
great as Babylon and Nineveh."

"Well, we'll not be here to see. This fog is just high enough to filter
into one's very marrow--even your picturesque pioneer days are over; I
will confess they might have made me feel that life on the edge of the
world was worth while. I should have liked to lay the foundations of a
great isolated city like San Francisco; but I don't see any sign of
another big city. Los Angeles is a little Chicago and may live to be a
big one, but nothing would induce me to live in the south. However, no
man is ever conscious of the fact that he is in at the birth of a great
city; our pione