Sleeping Fires: a Novel
SLEEPING FIRES I There was no Burlingame in the Sixties, the Western Addition was a desert of sand dunes and the goats gambolled through the rocky gulches of Nob Hill. But San Francisco had its Rincon Hill and South Park, Howard and Fulsom and Harrison Streets, coldly aloof from the tumultuous hot heart of the City north of Market Street. In this residence section the sidewalks were also wooden and uneven and the streets muddy in winter and dusty in summer, but the houses, some of which had "come round the Horn," were large, simple, and stately. Those on the three long streets had deep gardens before them, with willow trees and oaks above the flower beds, quaint ugly statues, and fountains that were sometimes dry. The narrower houses of South Park crowded one another about the oval enclosure and their
could distinguish herself.
"Here's a home mission all ready for you, and you can be paying
your debts beside doing yourself good," Mrs. Pecq said to her in
private, having found plenty to do herself.
Now Jill made one great mistake at the outset--she forgot that she
was the one to be converted to good manners and gentleness, and
devoted her efforts to looking after Jack, finding it much easier to
cure other people's faults than her own. Jack was a most engaging
heathen, and needed very little instruction; therefore Jill thought
her task would be an easy one. But three or four weeks of petting
and play had rather demoralized both children, so Jill's Speller,
though tucked under the sofa pillow every day, was seldom looked
at, and Jack shirked his Latin shamefully. Both read all the
story-books they could get, held daily levees in the Bird Room, and
all their spare minutes were spent in teaching Snowdrop, the great
Angora cat, to bring the ball when they dropped it in their game.
So Saturday came, and both were rather the worse for so much
idleness, since daily duties and studies are the wholesome bread
which feeds the mind better than the dyspeptic plum-cake of
sensational reading, or the unsubstantial _bon-bons_ of frivolous
amusement.
It was a stormy day, so they had few callers, and devoted
themselves to arranging the album; for these books were all the
SLEEPING FIRES I There was no Burlingame in the Sixties, the Western Addition was a desert of sand dunes and the goats gambolled through the rocky gulches of Nob Hill. But San Francisco had its Rincon Hill and South Park, Howard and Fulsom and Harrison Streets, coldly aloof from the tumultuous hot heart of the City north of Market Street. In this residence section the sidewalks were also wooden and uneven and the streets muddy in winter and dusty in summer, but the houses, some of which had "come round the Horn," were large, simple, and stately. Those on the three long streets had deep gardens before them, with willow trees and oaks above the flower beds, quaint ugly statues, and fountains that were sometimes dry. The narrower houses of South Park crowded one another about the oval enclosure and their