air. I confess that it is difficult to fix my
eyes upon the dull paper, and my fingers upon the duller pen with which
I am soiling it. Almost every other minute I find myself stopping to
listen to the ceaseless river-psalm, or to gaze up into the wondrous
depths of the California heaven; to watch the graceful movements of the
pretty brown lizards jerking up their impudent little heads above a
moss-wrought log which lies before me, or to mark the dancing
water-shadow on the canvas door of the bakeshop opposite; to follow
with childish eyes the flight of a golden butterfly, curious to know if
it will crown with a capital of winged beauty that column of nature's
carving, the pine stump rising at my feet, or whether it will flutter
down (for it is dallying coquettishly around them both) upon that
slate-rock beyond, shining so darkly lustrous through a flood of yellow
sunlight; or I lazily turn my head, wondering if I know the blue or red
shirted miner who is descending the precipitous hill behind me. In
sooth, Molly, it is easy to be commonplace at all times, but I confess
that, just at present, I find it difficult to be utilitarian; the saucy
lizards, the great orange-dotted butterflies, the still, solemn cedars,
the sailing smoke-wreath, and the vaulted splendor above, are wooing me
so winningly to higher things.

But, as I said before, I have an ambition that way, and I _will_
succeed. You are such a good-natured little thing, dear, that I know
you will meekly allow yourself to be victimized into reading the
profound and prosy remarks which I shall make in my efforts to initiate
you into the mining polity of this place. Now, you may rest assured
that I shall assert nothing upon the subject which is not perfectly
correct; for have I not earned a character for inquisitiveness (and you
know that does _not_ happen to be one of my failings) which I fear will
cling to me through life, by my persevering questions to all the
unhappy miners from whom I thought I could gain any information? Did I
not martyrize myself into a human mule by descending to the bottom of a
dreadful pit (suffering mortal terror all the time, lest it should cave
in upon me), actuated by a virtuous desire to see with my own two eyes
the process of underground mining, thus enabling myself to be stupidly
correct in all my statements thereupon? Did I not ruin a pair of
silk-velvet slippers, lame my ankles for a week, and draw a "browner
horror" over my alread