If she had cherished a lingering delusion that aught remained of the old proud reserved character of the society of her mother's time, it had vanished before the chatter of her hostess and the experiences of the day. They had not lunched at The St. Francis, after all. As they reached the entrance Mrs. Hofer capriciously changed her mind, and decided to make a dramatic descent with Isabel upon the house of a friend whom she knew to be entertaining informally, and where she was always sure of a welcome. The house was out at The Mission, a generic term in these days for the valley under the shadow of Twin Peaks, so sparsely populated by the _padres_. There were still a few large wooden houses, surrounded by grounds, that looked like country seats in the midst of that wilderness of cheap and hideous streets; built perhaps thirty or forty years before, when "The Mission" was a suburb, and for old affection's sake still inhabited in spite of a thousand drawbacks. Isabel approached this place in a fever of anticipation, for it was none other than the old estate of Juan Moraga, and through a grille in its vanished adobe wall Concha Argueello had held tryst with her Russian lover, Rezanov. Into this sheltered valley the trade winds and the fog came so seldom that, although it was a November day, the host had no hesitation in entertaining his guests on the lawn, with rugs under foot and a canopy to protect the complexions of the women. Here, Isabel found members of nearly every set the city had ever possessed: Mrs. Trennahan, like herself of the old Spanish stock, and her New York husband; Anne Montgomery and two or three others of the second regime; Catalina Shore, with her beautiful half Indian face and English husband; these few with a repose of manner that looked old-fashioned against the lightly poised figures and incessant chatter of the younger girls. And there was an even greater variety of garb. Several were dressed for the season in velvet and furs: one wore an organdie blouse and hat; another had hastily donned a checked travelling suit; there was no doubt that Miss Montgomery had bought her simple brown frock already made, and perhaps at a sale; her neighbor wore a black lace dress with a fur boa. The majority were excessively smart, whatever their vagaries, and Mrs. Hofer, most of all, in several shades of gray; not only becoming to her dark hair and bright color, but suggesting the natural plumage of a bird; she was one of those women that look so well in whatever they wear that it is difficult to imagine them in anything else. Isabel, perhaps, although the sharp eye of a woman would have detected the absence of the hand of a maid in her toilette, more nearly solved the problem of a spring day in mid-winter, with her frock of white serge and large black hat covered with feathers.