"It is shocking that you do not know more of the family history. From California, of course. He had great gifts and political aspirations, and realized that there would be more opportunity in the new state--particularly in such a famous one--than in his own where all the men in public life seemed to have taken root--I remember his using that expression. So, he came here with his bride, the beauty of Richmond--" "Oh, Lord, I know all about her. Remember the flavor in my mother's milk--" "Well, you'd look like her if you had brown eyes and a white skin, and if your mouth were smaller. And until you learn to stand up straight you'll never have anything like her elegance of carriage. However.... Of course they had plenty of money--for those days. They had come to Virginia in the days of Queen Elizabeth and received a large grant of land--" "Don't fancy I haven't heard _that_!" "Grandfather had inherited the plantation--" "Sold his slaves, I suppose, to come to California and realize his ambitions. Funny, how ideals change!" "His abilities were recognized as soon as lie arrived in the new community, and our wonderful grandmother became at once one of that small band of social leaders that founded San Francisco society: Mrs. Hunt McLane, the Hathaways, Mrs. Don Pedro Earle, the Montgomerys, the Gearys, the Talbots, the Belmonts, Mrs. Abbott, Tom's grandmother--" "Never mind about them. I have them dished up occasionally by mother, although she prefers to descant upon the immortal eighties, when she was a leader herself and 'money wasn't everything.' We never had so much of it anyhow. I know Grandfather Ballinger built this ramshackle old house--" Mrs. Abbott sat forward and drew herself up. She felt as if she were talking to a stranger, as, indeed, she was. "This house and its traditions are sacred--" "I know it. Yon were telling me how mother came to marry a bad fast man." "He was not fast when she met him. It was at a ball in Washington. He was a young congressman--he was wounded in his right arm during the first year of the war and returned at once to California; of course he had been one of the first to enlist. He was of a fine old family and by no means poor. Of course in Washington he was asked to the best houses. At that time he was very ambitious and absorbed in politics and the advancement of California. Afterward he renounced Washington for reasons I never clearly understood; although he told me once that California was the only place for a man to live; and--well--I am afraid he could do more as he pleased out here without criticism--from men, at least. The standards--for men--were very low in those days. But when he met mother--" "Was mother ever very pretty?" "She was handsome," replied Mrs. Abbott guardedly. "Of course she had the freshness and roundness of youth. I am told she had a lovely color and the brightest eyes. And she had a beautiful figure. She had several proposals, but she chose father."