r unions more
greedy and tyrannical than any Trust in the country. Nice town. But we
are optimists. No doubt Mr. Hofer and his party are already planning for
the next campaign. If I were a man, I'd go back to the tactics of the
Fifties and lynch. The city had good government for twenty years after
the operations of that Vigilance Committee. You might suggest it."

"I cannot say that I am in a suggesting mood. Shall you be here to
dinner?"

"Probably. But you are to accept whatever offers. No doubt Mr. Hofer
will motor you out to the Country Club or down to Burlingame, where he
has a house."

Gwynne nodded gratefully and left her. As he reached the top of the
steps leading down the hill, Isabel saw him pause and speak to a very
tall very smart young woman, whom she recognized in a moment as Mrs.
Hofer. Then the young matron advanced along the board walk with a sort
of trembling stride. It was evident from her charming blushing face that
she was as embarrassed as any one so young and buoyant, so successful
and so Irish, could be. Isabel ran down the steps to meet her.

"Oh!" cried Mrs. Hofer, in a light, high, cultivated, but nasal voice,
with a slightly English accent. "You _are_ sweet! I had intended to call
in state the first time I could think of a decent excuse, for I have
simply been mad--_mad_--to know you. But last night I told Mr. Hofer
that my slender stock of patience had gone--flown--evaporated. I could
hardly wait till this afternoon! Do you think I'm unconventional? I'm
not really, except when I'm abroad--never here. Nobody is so
conventional as the San Franciscan at home."

Isabel was smiling and trying to guide her up the steps. "I am more glad
than I can say to know you, at last," she said. "Do come into my house."

"Let me rest a bit. The breath is out of me with the climb and the
fright. Yes, fright, and it takes a good deal to phaze me. But you're
the sensation of the town, my dear. There have been all sorts of plans
to get hold of you. People are simply mad--_mad_! I was just bound I'd
be the first. Not petty social ambition, not a bit of it. I wanted to
know you. And I stayed in a country-house in England just after you,
last year. To think that you could have married Lord Hexam. Oh, what a
jewel of a house! I went simply mad over those white rooms in London."

Isabel had firmly piloted her up the steps and into the house, and Mrs.
Hofer sat on the edge of a chair like a bird on a bough, her m