s of the town, but in dress and manner
assumed the role of a leader of society. The invariable answer to their
half-humorous comment was the necessities of the mine, and the policy
of frequenting the company of capitalists, to enlist their support and
confidence. There was something in this so unlike their father, that
what at any other time they would have hailed as a relief to
his habitual abstraction now half alarmed them. Yet he was not
dissipated--he did not drink nor gamble. There certainly did not seem
any harm in his frequenting the society of ladies, with a gallantry that
appeared to be forced and a pleasure that to their critical eyes was
certainly apocryphal. He did not drag his daughters into the mixed
society of that period; he did not press upon them the company of those
he most frequented, and whose accepted position in that little world of
fashion was considered equal to their own. When Jessie strongly objected
to the pronounced manners of a certain widow, whose actual present
wealth and pecuniary influence condoned for a more uncertain prehistoric
past, Mr. Carr did not urge a further acquaintance. "As long as you're
not thinking of marrying again, papa," Jessie had said finally, "I don't
see the necessity of our knowing her." "But suppose I were," had replied
Mr. Carr with affected humor. "Then you certainly wouldn't care for any
one like her," his daughter had responded triumphantly. Mr. Carr smiled,
and dropped the subject, but it is probable that his daughters' want of
sympathy with his acquaintances did not in the least interfere with
his social prestige. A gentleman in all his relations and under all
circumstances, even his cold scientific abstraction was provocative;
rich men envied his lofty ignorance of the smaller details of
money-making, even while they mistrusted his judgment. A man still well
preserved, and free from weakening vices, he was a dangerous rival to
younger and faster San Francisco, in the eyes of the sex, who knew how
to value a repose they did not themselves possess.

Suddenly Mr. Carr announced his intention of proceeding to Sacramento,
on further business of the mine, leaving his two daughters in the family
of a wealthy friend until he should return for them. He opposed their
ready suggestion to return to Devil's Ford with a new and unnecessary
inflexibility: he even met their compromise to accompany him to
Sacramento with equal decision.

"You will be only in my way," he s