he long held her position as a social
favorite. But children came and died too quickly for her health and
fragile beauty, and the storms of life beset her. She continued to live
in her inconvenient eyrie, not only in the waning hope of ultimately
separating her husband from the convivial beings on the lower plain, but
because she felt an intense pride in owning a home two generations old
in that young community. She was determined that it should remain in the
family and be occupied by at least one of her children. So the ugly
brown wooden structure with its bay-windows, its central tower, its
Mansard-roof--added for the servants--had, contrary to all tradition,
actually joined three generations of San Franciscans in one unbroken
chain. It owed its proud position, no doubt, to the fact that when the
Otis fortunes collapsed there was but one child left to inherit it and
to be supported meanwhile.

Isabel intended in time to give the house a new facade, and had gloated
over such of the Burnham plans as had been reproduced by the city press.
These lovely plans were designed to make the city as classic and
imposing as Nature had dreamed of when she piled up that rugged
amphitheatre out of chaos; and Isabel had long since resolved that, if
she could not be the first to plant a bit of ancient Athens upon a brown
and ragged bluff, the high tide of her fortunes should coincide with the
awakening of the city to the sense of its architectural guilt. She
banished much of the tasteless furniture of the old time, and refitted
with a stately comfort that expressed one side of her nature. She too
clung to traditions--and to the long mirrors in their tarnished gilt
frames, with the little shelf below; the multitude of family portraits
engraved on wood, and surrounded by a wide white margin and tiny gilt
frame. That they might strike no discordant note, she made use of a
lesson learned in London, where she had spent a month with Lady
Victoria, and had the walls and wood of the living-room painted white,
covered the windows and furniture with a plain stuff of a dark but
neutral blue. In the dining-room were a few paintings of her New England
and Spanish ancestors, and she disturbed them only to replace the
wall-paper with leather; at the same time sending the black walnut
furniture to the auction-room.

Being the one practical member of her family, and the product of an
earthquake country, she repaired the uncertain foundations of her ho