On far-flung heights beyond the business section crowded between
Market and Clay Streets were isolated mansions, built by prescient
men whose belief in the rapid growth of the city to the north and
west was justified in due course, but which sheltered at present
amiable and sociable ladies who lamented their separation by vast
spaces from that aristocratic quarter of the south.
But they had their carriages, and on a certain Sunday afternoon
several of these arks drawn by stout horses might have been seen
crawling fearfully down the steep hills or floundering through the
sand until they reached Market Street; when the coachmen cracked
their whips, the horses trotted briskly, and shortly after began to
ascend Rincon Hill.
Mrs. Hunt McLane, the social dictator of her little world, had
recently moved from South Park into a large house on Rincon Hill that
had been built by an eminent citizen who had lost his fortune as
abruptly as he had made it; and this was her housewarming. It was safe
to say that her rooms would be crowded, and not merely because her
Sunday receptions were the most important minor functions in San
Francisco: it was possible that Dr. Talbot and his bride would be
there. And if he were not it might be long before curiosity would be
gratified by even a glance at the stranger; the doctor detested the
theatre and had engaged a suite at the Occidental Hotel with a private
dining-room.
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