aid curtly. "Enjoy yourselves here
while you can."

Thus left to themselves, they tried to accept his advice. Possibly some
slight reaction to their previous disappointment may have already set
in; perhaps they felt any distraction to be a relief to their anxiety
about their father. They went out more; they frequented concerts and
parties; they accepted, with their host and his family, an invitation to
one of those opulent and barbaric entertainments with which a noted San
Francisco millionaire distracted his rare moments of reflection in his
gorgeous palace on the hills. Here they could at least be once more in
the country they loved, albeit of a milder and less heroic type, and a
little degraded by the overlapping tinsel and scattered spangles of the
palace.

It was a three days' fete; the style and choice of amusements left to
the guests, and an equal and active participation by no means necessary
or indispensable. Consequently, when Christie and Jessie Carr proposed
a ride through the adjacent canyon on the second morning, they had no
difficulty in finding horses in the well-furnished stables of their
opulent entertainers, nor cavaliers among the other guests, who were
too happy to find favor in the eyes of the two pretty girls who were
supposed to be abnormally fastidious and refined. Christie's escort
was a good-natured young banker, shrewd enough to avoid demonstrative
attentions, and lucky enough to interest her during the ride with his
clear and half-humorous reflections on some of the business speculations
of the day. If his ideas were occasionally too clever, and not always
consistent with a high sense of honor, she was none the less interested
to know the ethics of that world of speculation into which her father
had plunged, and the more convinced, with mingled sense of pride and
anxiety, that his still dominant gentlemanhood would prevent his coping
with it on equal terms. Nor could she help contrasting the conversation
of the sharp-witted man at her side with what she still remembered of
the vague, touching, boyish enthusiasm of the millionaires of Devil's
Ford. Had her escort guessed the result of this contrast, he would
hardly have been as gratified as he was with the grave attention of her
beautiful eyes.

The fascination of a gracious day and the leafy solitude of the canyon
led them to prolong their ride beyond the proposed limit, and it became
necessary towards sunset for them to seek some shorter