For Money.—Chapters IX-XI [pp. 241-254]

For Money.
room. She was acquiescent, as usual, when
he advanced a proposition, but she did not
take kindly to the idea of a change. She
had lived in the country and loved it all her
life, and the serene valley and flowery woods,
low hills and gentle river about her native
New York village, had given place in her affections to the bold, characteristic mountain
scenery about San Manuel. Of San Francisco she had only seen the low, business
part of the city, as most of her time had been
spent at a hotel or in shopping; and Mrs.
Valentine, who was the only person she had
visited there, lived in a flat part of the city,
where there was no view, declaring that she
was too old to climb hills.
The impression the dear old city gave
Louise on her drive to her new house she
never forgot, and it only deepened as the
years went by. San Francisco seems like a
whimsical individuality, showing strangers
her ugliest, seamiest side, but developing new
beauties every day after the eyes have grown
accustomed to her original appearance. The
hills lie round her as round about Jerusalem. And the bay, one of the loveliest in
the world, even to those who have seen Naples, holds her in its arms; and wherever
you go, you have the city, man, and civilization before you, at your feet; and about and
beyond you, the everlasting hills and the
everlasting sea.
It was a soft, warm, clear day, the rain all
gone, when Louise drove with her husband
to see her city home; and as she alighted
from the carriage, she stood still and looked
about her with delight. The house stood
on a hill, of course; of a pretty one, that situation is a foregone conclusion in San Francisco. Off to the south, across a valley filled
with houses, rose the Twin Peaks and their
sister Mission hills, soft with the new green
that clothes them after a rain as if by magic;
looking to the west she saw the Fort, the
Golden Gate, and the ocean beyond, a streak
of shining, glittering silver in the afternoon
sun; and to the north, a bit of the bay,
bounded to her vision by the bold, red mountains on the opposite shore, the intervening
house-covered hills of the city, and the mon
ster dunes of the beach, more like a placid
mountain lake than an arm of the sea, with
the vivid blue sky above.
"We don't need to go in, Marion," murmured Louise. "I never thought it was
beautiful like this." And Mr. Waring felt
grateful to her for being pleased.
XI.
THERE was distress in the Lennard family
when she communicated her plans to them.
"My dear, I shall never see you again,"
said Frances, breaking down altogether.
"You will have too many new occupations
to be running over here all the time, and I
can't go across to you very often."
Mrs. Lennard sat quiet, divided between
grief at the separation-for it was practically that-and delight in the fortunes of her
favorite child. It warmed the very middle
of her heart that her Louise should leap at
one bound to the position of a fashionable
woman, and, doubtless, leader as soon as
she should feel assured. She had a little
formula in speaking of various people: "Yes,
they have done very well-as this world
goes," the last part of her phrase being a
sort of concession to what was expected of
her in the way of unworldliness as a clergyman's wife; but in her soul she felt that it
was absolutely well. Some one has remarked: "On Earth so much is needed, but
in Heaven, Love is all." Mrs. Lennard
held privately that it was all very well for
love to be enough in heaven, but meanwhile
she wanted all that was needed on earth, too,
and as she could not have it, the next best
thing was that Louise should. Then she
thought of her own lessening home circle,
and the tears came into her eyes. Of the
seven olive branches so lately about her,
only four were left, and sometimes but three,
for Harry did not always go home at night.
Most of Gilbert's work was done after six
o'clock, and he, of course, lived in the city.
Rose and Louise were married, and their interest in their old home would grow less and
less, in the nature of things. She tried to
dry her eyes, but the tears rose faster than
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