It was now that the great black storm-cloud which had been hovering
over the nation for years broke in all its fury upon this border
State. The Osbournes, together with nearly all their friends and
relatives, cast in their lot with the North, and young Osbourne left
his family and went to the war as captain in the army.

We must now return to the dark, handsome boy, George Marshall, once
the favourite playmate and now the brother-in-law of Fanny Van de
Grift. He, too, joined the colours, in command of a company of Zouaves
whom he had himself gathered and trained. After a time spent in active
service on some of the hardest fought battle-fields of the Civil War,
the hardships and exposure of the life told upon a constitution never
at any time robust, and he returned to his young wife a victim of
tuberculosis. The doctors said his only chance was to get to the
milder climate of California, and at the close of the war Samuel
Osbourne, who was his devoted friend, gave up position and prospects
to accompany him thither. The two young men, leaving their families
behind them, took ship at New York for Panama; but the Angel of Death
sailed with them, and Captain Marshall breathed his last while
crossing the Isthmus.

Osbourne decided to go on to California, and on his arrival there was
so pleased with the country that he wrote to his wife to sell her
property at once and follow him. Bidding a long farewell to the loving
parents who had up to that time stood between her and every trouble,
Fanny Osbourne, at an age when most young women are enjoying the
care-free life of irresponsible girlhood, took her small daughter
Isobel and set forth into a new and strange world.

Crossing the Isthmus by the crookedest railroad ever seen, she stopped
at Panama to visit the burial-place of the young soldier, George
Marshall, her childhood playmate, beloved friend, and brother-in-law,
and over that lonely grave the child for the first time saw her
girlish mother shed tears.

CHAPTER III

ON THE PACIFIC SLOPE.

When at last the long voyage up the Western coast came to an end and
the ship sailed into the broad bay of San Francisco, which lay serene
and beautiful under the shadow of its towering guardian, Mount
Tamalpais, Fanny Osbourne hung over the rail and surveyed the scene
with eager interest. Yet it is altogether unlikely that any
realization came to her then that the lively seaport town that lay
before her was to become