It was just at sunset, a time pre-arranged by Mr. Stone, who now thought of everything, when the two automobiles paused on the brow of a hill near Berkeley.
Spread before them was the glorious panorama of San Francisco Bay. San Francisco, at one end of the peninsula, was shimmering gold in the last rays of the sun as it sank in the ocean at the very entrance of the Golden Gate. The whole scene might have been painted with a brush dipped in gold so glorified were the surrounding hills and bay by the sun’s rays.
It was all very much like a dream, unreal and strange as they hastened up and down the hilly streets of San Francisco and finally came to a stop at the St. Francis Hotel.
It was the end of their trip across the continent; the end of the summer and the beginning of happiness for their new friends. To-morrow there would be a wedding at which four Motor Maids would act as bridesmaids and Mr. John James Stone would give his daughter to Daniel Moore with a real fatherly blessing.
The bridegroom gave a dinner that night to the bridal party. It was a grand affair, a real dinner party. The girls wore their very best dresses and carried bunches of violets sent by that abject and thoughtful lover, Mr. Stone.
During the dinner which was given in one of the pretty private dining rooms of the St. Francis, John James Stone rose in his might and made a speech, just as if they were the most distinguished company in the world.
“Miss Campbell,” he said, and that lady stirred uneasily under the fire of his ardent black eyes, “and young ladies, I feel that I cannot let this delightful evening slip by without taking the opportunity to thank you for a gift which I count as the most precious I have ever received in my whole life.”
He spoke with the tone of an orator, his voice, vibrating and deep, rising and falling like the sound of the waves on the seashore, and his words were somewhat Biblical, after the manner of the Mormon speechmaker.
“All my life I have been as one walking in the dark,” he continued. “Even my daughter was a shadow to me. Only one thing was real. Money! And now I have lost a great deal of my money. It has slipped from my fingers into the hands of another man, who, thank God, has not forced himself into my family and never will. But I have received something in place of my fortune which is now and always will be of infinitely more value to me than money. The darkness is lifted and I stand in the light. I feel as one who has been groping in the night and have now turned my face toward the rising sun. You have made me the gift of sight. This gracious little lady,” he continued, turning to Miss Campbell, “whose spirit and courage first aroused my admiration and then a deeper feeling,” he placed his hand on his heart with the most unblushing candor. It was difficult for the other members of the party to hide their smiles. “This elegant little lady although she will not consent to make me the happiest of mortals has at least succeeded in inspiring me with a new content.
“Will she therefore and the young Motor Maids—” he paused and smiled at this expression which he had caught from the girls—“do me the honor to accept a slight token of my gratitude?”