They take pleasure in telling a good story also. As Ashton and I were travelling one afternoon to San Rafael we were joined on the Saucelito ferry boat by a benevolent gentleman, named Ingram, who said he was a cousin of the Bishop of London. As we talked over various matters he finally said, "I will tell you a story. An Irishman landed in New York after a stormy voyage; and as he walked up Broadway he thought that he would go into the first place he saw, which looked like a Roman Catholic church, and there offer thanks for his safe journey. When he came to St. Paul's Chapel, with the statute of the Apostle in view, he went into it, and kneeling down he began to cross himself. The sexton seeing his demonstrations said to him, 'This is not a Roman church, this is a Protestant church.' But said he, 'It is a Catholic church. Don't you see the cross and the candles on the altar.' 'O no,' said the sexton in reply, 'It is a Protestant church.' 'No, no,' said the Irishman, 'you can't convince me that St. Paul turned Protestant when he came to America!'" One is impressed with the air of prosperity and thrift on every hand. Many of the houses are artistic in construction and elegant in their furnishings. Some of them are stately mansions, notably the Stanford, Huntington, Hopkins and Crocker residences on California avenue, in its most conspicuous section. The homes of these California kings are adorned with costly works of art, choice paintings, and beautifully chiselled marbles. During the sessions of the General Convention the Crocker mansions on the north side of the avenue were the centre of attraction in the liberal hospitality dispensed there and the courtesies shown to many of the Bishops and other Clergy. On the evening of Wednesday, October the ninth, Bishop Nichols held a reception for the Bishops, other Clergy, the Lay Deputies, and their friends, in the Hopkins' mansion, on the south side of California avenue. This is now used as an Art Institute, and it is admirably adapted to its purpose. The building was thronged all the evening by the members of the Convention and the representatives of San Francisco society. Five thousand people high in the councils of the Church and the Nation and in social walks were in attendance; and it was impossible to accommodate all who came. It is said that hundreds were turned away. The writer and his friends considered themselves fortunate to be able to thread their way through the crowd without being crushed or having their garments torn. It was the grandest function of a social character which ever took place on the Pacific coast. The costly paintings adorning chambers, galleries and reception rooms, the splendid specimens of statuary, the numerous pictures, the brilliant lights, the strains of joyous music, but above all the moving throng of handsome women beautifully arrayed, and the noble bearing of Bishop, Priest and layman, with the fine intellectual faces