SLEEPING FIRES

A NOVEL

BY GERTRUDE ATHERTON





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