brief twinge of conscience in taking this advantage of Zephas' kindness,
but the next moment, with that peculiar logic known only to the sex, she
made the unfortunate man's suggestion a condonation of her deceit. SHE
hadn't asked to go; HE had offered to take her. He had only himself to
thank.

Meantime the political excitement in which she had become a partisan
without understanding or even conviction, presently culminated with the
Presidential campaign and the election of Abraham Lincoln. The intrigues
of Southern statesmen were revealed in open expression, and echoed in
California by those citizens of Southern birth and extraction who
had long, held place, power, and opinion there. There were rumors
of secession, of California joining the South, or of her founding an
independent Pacific Empire. A note from "J. E. Kirby" informed Mrs.
Bunker that she was to carefully retain any correspondence that might be
in her hands until further orders, almost at the same time that Zephas
as regretfully told her that his projected Southern trip had been
suspended. Mrs. Bunker was disappointed, and yet, in some singular
conditions of her feelings, felt relieved that her meeting with Marion
was postponed. It is to be feared that some dim conviction, unworthy
a partisan, that in the magnitude of political events her own petty
personality might be overlooked by her hero tended somewhat to her
resignation.

Meanwhile the seasons had changed. The winter rains had set in; the
trade winds had shifted to the southeast, and the cottage, although
strengthened, enlarged, and made more comfortable through the good
fortunes of the Bunkers, was no longer sheltered by the cliff, but
was exposed to the full strength of the Pacific gales. There were long
nights when she could hear the rain fall monotonously on the shingles,