Blix

IT had just struck nine from the cuckoo clock that hung over the mantelpiece in the dining-room, when Victorine brought in the halved watermelon and set it in front of Mr. Bessemers plate. Then she went down to the front door for the damp, twisted roll of the Sunday morn- ings paper, and came back and rang the breakfast-bell for the second time. As the family still hesitated to appear, she went to the bay window at the end of the room, and stood there for a mo- ment looking out. The view was won- derful. The Bessemers lived upon th Washington-Street hill, almost at its very 2 Blix summit, in a fiat in the third story of the building. The contractor had been clever enough to reverse the position of kitchen and dining-room, so that the lat- ter room was at the rear of the house. From its windows one could command a sweep of San Francisco Bay and the Contra Costa shore, from Mount Diablo, along past Oakland, Berkeley, Saucelito, and Mount Tamalpais, out to the Golden Gate, the Presidio, the ocean, and even on very clear days to the Farrallone islands. For some time Victorine stood looking down at the great expanse of land and sea, then faced about with an impatient exclamation. On Sundays all the week-day rSgime of the family was deranged, and break- fast was a movable feast, to be had any time after seven or before half -past nine. As Victorine was pouring the ice-water, Mr. Bessemer himself came in, and ad- dressed himself at once to his meal, with- Bliz out so much as a thought of waiting for the others. He was a little round man. He wore a skull-cap to keep his bald spot warm, and read his paper through a reading- glass. The expression of his face, wrinkled and bearded, the eyesshadowed by enormous gray eyebrows, was that of an amiable gorilla. Bessemer was one of those men who seem entirely disassociated from their families. Only on rare and intense oc- casions did his paternal spirit or instincts assert themselves. At table he talked but little. Though devotedly fond of his eldest daughter, she was a puzzle and a stranger to him. His interests and hers were absolutely dissimilar. The chil- dren he seldom spoke to but to reprove while Howard, the son, the ten-year-old and terrible infant of the household, he always referred to as that boy. He was an abstracted, self-centred old man, with buttwo hobbies homoaopathy 3