When Gwynne and Isabel descended the steps and stood looking down upon the scene for a moment, the younger people were dancing. Every woman seemed to have been fired with the ambition to contribute her own part to the brilliancy of the night. There were tiaras by the score in these days, and the gowns had journeyed half-way round the world. There had been imported gowns in the immortal Eighties, when Mrs. Yorba reigned, but never a tiara; and Isabel for the first time fully realized the significant changes worked by the vast modern fortunes and their ambitious owners. Blood might have been enough for their predecessors, but the outward and visible sign for them. And all sets were represented to-night. It is doubtful if any woman had done as much to entice them to a common focus as the surmounting Mrs. Hofer. She was not the leader of San Francisco society, for that office was practically an elective one, and meant an infinite amount of trouble with corresponding perquisites; it must be held by a woman of supreme tact, experience, executive ability, and practically nothing else to do. The present incumbent, to the infinite credit of San Francisco, was a member of one of the oldest and most distinguished families in California; or in America, for that matter; and although still young, and with less to spend in a year than the Hofers wasted in a week, she had been chosen, after the death of the old leader, and some acrimonious discussion, to rule; and rule she did with a rod of iron. But she took her good where she found it, and was grateful for what Mrs. Hofer, with her beautiful house and irresistible energy had already accomplished. For Mrs. Hofer was by no means too democratic. If she had drawn all factions to her house she had taken care that only the best of her own kind came too, and this best was very good indeed; for it was educated and accomplished, more often than not had mingled in society abroad; an honor to which many of the ancient aristocracy had never aspired. No one recognized this fact, and the irresistible law of progress, better than the Leader, in spite of her Spanish blood; and to-night she sat in the very centre of the north gallery, her charming dark face draped in a mantilla some two centuries old. Beside her sat Anne Montgomery who had not a drop of Spanish in her, but whom Mrs. Hofer had done up with a brand-new mantilla of white lace and an immense black fan. Miss Montgomery had a lingering sense of humor, but it suited her to look young and pretty once more, if only for a night. Mrs. Trennahan, who was really fond of Mrs. Hofer, particularly as she had been adroitly persuaded that this party was to be a mere setting for her lovely young daughter, also decorated the gallery in one of the old Yorba mantillas--it had belonged to the beautiful aunt for whom this house had been built by the husband she scorned--and wore it for the first time in her life. Trennahan had shaken with a fit of inward laughter, but had