over five hundred dollars; although it cost sixteen dollars to have the
piano used on the occasion moved from one side of the plaza, or
Portsmouth Square, to the other. On a copy of the programme which now
lies before me I find this line: "N.B.--Front seats reserved for
ladies!" History records that there were but four ladies
present--probably the only four in the town at the time. Massett died in
New York city a few months ago,--a man who had friends in every country
under the sun, and, I believe, no enemy.

I remember the Mission Dolores as a detached settlement with a
pronounced Spanish flavor. There was one street worth mentioning, and
only one. It was lined with low-walled adobe houses, roofed with the red
curved tiles which add so much to the adobe houses that otherwise would
be far from picturesque. The adobe is a sun-baked brick; it is
mud-color; its walls look as if they were moulded of mud. The adobes
were the native California habitations. We spoke of them as adobes;
although it would probably be as correct, etymologically, to refer to
brick houses as bricks.

There were a few ramshackle hotels at the mission; for in the early days
it seemed as if everybody either boarded or took in boarders, and many
families lived for years in hotels rather than attempt to keep house in
the wilds of San Francisco. The mission was about one house deep each
side of the main street. You might have turned a corner and found
yourself face to face with the cattle in the meadow. As for the goats,
they met you at the doorway and followed you down the street like dogs.

At the top of this street stood the mission church and what few mission
buildings were left for the use of the Fathers. The church and the
grounds were the most interesting features of the place, and it was a