on of importance in San Francisco. Nevertheless, as she
looked down to-day on the sharp outlines of the city under the hard blue
sky, almost glittering in their golden bath, she was impatient to become
a part of its life, or at least to discuss its interests with some one.
Rosewater, which of late years had become virtuous to excess, and almost
blind and deaf with local pride, took no interest in San Francisco
whatever, except as a market for eggs. When driven to the wall it
confessed the superiority of the metropolis in the matter of shops and
theatres; but its politics it invariably dismissed with adjectives more
forcible than elegant.

It was at this point in Isabel's meditations that her eye happened to
rove along the plank walk to the rickety old flight of steps that led
from Taylor Street up Russian Hill. There was something vaguely
familiar about a tall, thin, well-groomed, but by no means graceful,
figure rapidly ascending the steps. In a moment her mind lost its
tensity of projection and she was almost flying down her own long stair.

Gwynne broke into a run as he saw her. She wondered if he intended to
kiss her, but he merely shook her hand for a full minute.

"I never in my life was so glad to see anybody!" he exclaimed, with the
joyousness of a school-boy come home for his first holiday. "It was such
luck to hear that you were in San Francisco."

"But why didn't you telegraph? In a way I am disappointed--glad as I am
to see you. I intended to meet you at Oakland and take you directly up
to Lumalitas, where everything was to have been in gala array. And how
did you know I was in town?"

"While I was taking my lonely breakfast this morning--I arrived late
yesterday afternoon--and glancing over one of your newspapers, my eye
caught your name. I learned that 'the charming and beautiful young
mistress of the old Belmont House on Russian Hill, who had excited so
much interest of late, had come down as usual for Sunday."

"No?" Isabel flushed for the first time within Gwynne's knowledge of
her. "That is the very only time I have been the subject of a newspaper
paragraph--outside of Rosewater, which doesn't count--and I am as
delighted--as I have no doubt you were the first time you saw your name
in print!" she added, defiantly.

There was nothing cynical in Gwynne's smile. "I understand," he said;
and then, as he ceased to smile, the light died out of his face, and
Isabel noticed that it was older and thinne