A Ward of the Golden Gate

azed another carriage, loaded with luggage, driving up to a hotel. The abstracte

on his arrival at the principal European hotels. For he had lost all trace of Yerba, Pendleton, Milly, and the Briones from the day of their departure. The entire party seemed to have separated at Basle, and, in that eight

in reckless despair, had accepted the name and title of some penniless nobleman. It was this miserable doubt that had made his homeward journey at times seem like a cruel desertion of her, while at other moments the conviction that Milly's Californian relatives might give him some clew to her whereabouts made him feverishly fearful of delaying an hour

ited the offices of the different European steamer lines, and examined the recent passenger lists, but there was no record of any of the party. What made his quest seem the m

would dine and stay the next night with them at "Under Cliff," if he "still had any interest in the fortunes of old friends. Of course," added the perennially incoherent Milly, "if it bores you we sha'n't expect you." The quick color came to Paul's careworn

told him to go on and he would follow afoot. The tremor of vague anticipation had already come upon him; something that he knew not whether he feared or longed for, on

ing yellow sumach that jutted out into the noble river, was shorn of its intense radiance; at times in the thickest woods he seemed surrounded by a yellow nimbus; at times so luminous was the glow of these translucent leaves that the position of the sun itself seemed changed, or the shadows cast in defiance of its glory. As he walked on, long

teel blue of the river. He was hesitating whether to take this short cut or continue on by the road, when he heard the rustling of quick footsteps among the fallen leaves of the variegated thick

, and a few scarlet leaves clinging to the stuff of her wor

out to intercept you, as I had something to tell you before you saw the

-what was he doing? Where was this passionate outburst that had filled his heart for nights and days? Where this eager tumultuous questioning that his feverish lips had rehearsed hour b

in her shining eyes, and sent what might have been a glittering dew-drop flying into the lo

letter I got yesterday," she

and that held the letter, and would have drawn her

that l

ummons from yourself, Yerba? Tell me who is with you? Are you free and your own mistress-free to act for yourself and me? Speak, darling-don't be cru

that l

a-carried it always with me. See! I have it here!" He was in the act of w

please-read thi

the faintest suggestion of her old girlish archness, that struck hi

ary testimony that she was the daughter of the late Jose de Arguello, and legally entitled to bear his name. A copy of the instructions given to his wife, recognizi

Yerba, who was watching him eager

"You think only of this, when I speak of the preci

yes and hesitating lips; "do you mean t

ague remorsefulness, as he once more sought her elusive hand. "I a

ering with a strange joy, "do you say that

azing at her transfigured

her checks-"that you don't care-that-that-I am co

sta

ot mocking me? Yo

ough; but even as it did so she caught him in her arms, and for a single moment it closed upon them both, and hid them in its glory. A still lingering song-bird, possibly convinced that he had mistaken the season, and that spring ha