alled the Chinese quarter,--a
long, low wooden building still farther up on the hill. Only Jim was to
sleep in the house with Mr. Connor.

The Chinese quarter was a very comfortable house; and was presided over
by a fat old Chinaman, who had such a long queue that Jim called him
"Long Tail." His name was See Whong Choo, which, Jim said, was entirely
too long to pronounce. There were twenty Chinamen on the place; and a
funny sight it was to see them all file out of a morning to their work,
every one with what looked like a great dinner-plate upside down on his
head for a hat, and his long, black hair braided in a queue, not much
bigger than a rat tail, hanging down his back.

People in California are so used to seeing Chinamen, that they do not
realize how droll they look to persons not accustomed to the sight.

Their yellow skins, their funny little black eyes, set so slanting in
their heads that you can't tell half the time whether they are looking
straight at you or not, their shiny shaved heads and pig-tails, are all
very queer. And when you first hear them talking together in their own
tongue, you think it must be cats trying to learn English; it is a
mixture of caterwaul and parrot, more disagreeable in sound than any
language I ever heard.

About a year after Mr. Connor had moved into his new house, he got a
letter, one night, which made him very unhappy. It told him that his
sister and her husband were dead; they had died, both of them in one
week, of a dreadful fever. Their two children had had the fever at the
same time, but they were getting well; and now, as there was nobody in
Italy to take care of them, the letter asked what should be done with
them. Would Mr. Connor come out himself, or would he send some one? The
Count and his wife had been only a few days ill, and the fever had made
them delirious from the first, so that no directions had been given to
any one about the children; and there the two poor little things
were, all alone with their nurse in their apartment in the King's
palace. They had had to live in the palace always, so that the Count
could be ready to attend on the King whenever he was wanted.

[Illustration: THE KING'S PALACE.--Page 31.]

Giuseppe and Maria (those were their names) never liked living there.
The palace was much too grand, with its marble staircases, and marble
floored rooms, so huge and cold; and armed soldiers for sentinels,
standing at the corners and doors, to kee