This, then, was Spanish town. Magdalena had dreamed of it often, picturing it a blaze of colour, a moving picture-book, crowded with beautiful girls and handsome gaily attired men. There was not a young person to be seen. Nothing could be less picturesque, more sordid. An old crone with a face like a withered apple followed her, whining for a nickel. The others stared at her with the stolid dignity of their race. She gave the woman the nickel and interrupted the invocation. "Are there no girls here?" "Girl come from other place sometimes, then have the baby and is old queeck. Si the senorita stay here, she have the baby and grow old too." Magdalena hastened on. She neither knew nor cared where she went, but after a time struck down the slope again, judging that she was beyond the centre of social activity. Once, at the corner of two sharply converging streets, she passed a house whose lighted windows were open, for the wind had gone and the night was hot. But she only stood for a moment. Fat Mexican women half dressed were lolling about, and the front door was open to many men. The women were not as evil appearing as the French dregs of Dupont Street, possibly because they wore flowers in their hair and looked more frankly sensual and less commercial. Again Magdalena felt an almost irresistible attraction, but hastened on. Once, in a dark street, she was flung against a wall and her pockets turned inside out, but she made no protest and was allowed to go without further indignity. It was a woman who had robbed her, and Magdalena, having come off with the mere loss of seventy cents, indulged in a pleasurable thrill of adventure. After a time she found herself climbing a steep hill and felt a sudden desire to reach the top, and that the climb should be a long one. Here and there she passed a tumble-down house, but the rest of the hill under the brilliant moon showed bare and brown. From the other side came the sound of lapping waves, and she knew herself to be on Telegraph Hill. She reached the top and sat down on the ground. The clouds had flown with the wind, and the moon revealed the quiet bay and the black masses of cliff and hill and mountain beyond. An occasional gust made a loud clatter in the rigging of the many crafts below, or an angry shout arose from the water-front; but otherwise the night from the summit of Telegraph Hill was peaceful and most beautiful.