, who are at the same time the brightest and the most
frivolous, the most feminine and the most modern, the most daring and
the most indifferent, I have ever met. Those that have been as carefully
brought up as our ninetieth cousin, Inez Trennahan, are simply moulds
for the future to run into. There were several young persons that looked
as if they might go pretty far in a conservatory--perhaps that is the
reason Mrs. Hofer has none. She appears to have Irish virtue in excess,
and I expect the larky would get short shrift from her. But you--you are
quite unlike them all."

"I am a Californian," said Isabel, defiantly.

"Yes, but of a very exclusive sort--to say nothing of the peculiar
circumstances that were bound to breed seriousness of mind. And you have
quite a distinguished collection of real ancestors, and intellect
instead of mere cleverness. It is only once in a while that your--let me
whisper it--Western frankness and ingenuousness leap out--the
impulsiveness, the electric passion. When a certain amount of
readjustment has gone on inside of you and your more natural elements
work their way up and take possession, I really believe I shall fall in
love with you, and marry you out of hand--if you remain as beautiful as
you are to-night."

"All right," said Isabel, pretending to stifle a yawn. "That would be
interesting. All the clocks are booming something. Let us go out and see
if the sun is rising."

She wrapped herself in her cloak once more, and they climbed to the
crest of the hill and watched the sun rise behind the Berkeley mountains
and bathe San Francisco in trembling fire. It routed what was left of
the fog, although for a time the walls and waters of the Golden Gate
looked darker than before, and Tamalpais was a mountain of onyx. In a
few moments the smoke that wrapped the San Francisco day in a brown
perpetual haze began to ascend first from the little chimneys and then
from the great stacks. But until then every steeple, every tower, the
great piles of stone and brick in the valley, the old gardens full of
eucalyptus-trees and weeping willows, the strange assortment of
architectures on Nob Hill, even the rows of houses on the tapering
half-circle of hills beyond the valley, miles away, stood out as bright
and sharp and shadowless as if caught and imprisoned in a crystal ball.
It was the drifting smoke that seemed to bind all together and make the
city fit for humanity.

Gwynne pointed to a spot f