erry
shrewd sweet eyes devouring Isabel's face.

"Oh, but I've wanted to know you! You don't know what this means to me!"

"But why?" asked Isabel, much amused. "I am nobody."

"Oh, just aren't you, though? Why, you're almost the last of the old San
Francisco Knickerbockers, so to speak. That is, the last that has
inherited any of the beauty one is always hearing about from the old
beaux. And most of them have gone under anyhow--in the cheerful
California fashion: three generations from shirt sleeves to shirt
sleeves. Of course there are some left, but the most interesting thing
about them is that they have been forced to open their houses to the
likes of us--or sit down and talk to empty chairs. But the old Spanish
blood is what interests us most. It was quite forgotten--all that old
life--for about two generations; but now it's the fashion to remember
it, and everything else early Californian. To think that you are a
niece, so to speak, of the first nun in California, who had that
romantic love affair with that Russian--I never could pronounce his
name. That's not what interests _me_ most, though. It's _you_. To think
what you've done! Those chickens! My man in the market has orders to
send me Old Inn chickens and eggs, on penalty of losing my custom. All
the _blasee_ girls--the San Francisco girls _do_ get so _blasee_, poor
things--are threatening to go in for chickens. It would be a lot better
for them than bridge. It is quite shocking the way they do gamble. Talk
about early times!"

"Fancy chickens becoming a fad!" Mrs. Hofer had paused for breath. "Poor
chickens! Tell your friends that they will have to get up at all hours
of the night, and at six o'clock in winter, and five in summer, and
spend a large part of their time in overalls and rubber boots. I fancy
that will cure them."

"It would! No more flirtations! No more Paris gowns! No more paint! I'll
tell them. But they admire you, all the same. And we are all dying to
see you _en grande tenue_. I am giving a ball the night before
Christmas. Say you will come--right here, on the spot."

"I shall love to come. I had intended to reopen this house as soon as I
could afford it, and had hardly expected to pick up my mother's old
threads until then. But a ball! I haven't danced for a year."

"It is simply fine to hear you say things just like other girls, when
you look the concentrated essence of all our bewigged and bepowdered
ancestors. To think that you'v