Polly glanced into her stateroom.  Mrs. Oliver was a good sailor, and was lying snug and warm under her blankets.  So Polly took a camp-chair just outside the door, wrapped herself in her fur cape, crowded her tam-o’-shanter tightly on, and sat there alone as the sunset glow paled in the western sky and darkness fell upon the face of the deep.

The mesa faded from sight; and then the lighthouse, where she had passed so many happy hours in her childhood.  The bright disk of flame shone clear and steady across the quiet ocean, seeming to say, Let your light so shine!  Let your light so shine!  Good luck, Polly!  Keep your own lamp filled and trimmed, like a wise little virgin! And her heart answered, “Good-by, dear light!  I am leaving my little-girl days on the shore with you, and I am out on the open sea of life.  I shall know that you are shining, though I cannot see you.  Good-by!  Shine on, dear light!  I am going to seek my fortune!”

CHAPTER V.

TOLD IN LETTERS.

Extracts from Polly Oliver’s Correspondence.

        SAN FRANCISCO, November 1, 188—.

DEAR MARGERY,—­I have been able to write you only scraps of notes heretofore, but now that we are quite settled I can tell you about our new home.  We were at a hotel for a week, as long as I, the family banker, felt that we could, afford it.  At the end of that time, by walking the streets from morning till night, looking at every house with a sign “To Let” on it, and taking mamma to see only the desirable ones, we found a humble spot to lay our heads.  It is a tiny upper flat, which we rent for thirty dollars a month.  The landlady calls it furnished, but she has an imagination which takes even higher flights than mine.  Still, with the help of the pretty things we brought with us, we are very cosy and comfortable.  There is a tiny parlor, which, with our Santa Barbara draperies, table-covers, afternoon tea-table, grasses, and books, looks like a corner of the dear home sitting-room.  Out of this parlor is a sunny bedroom with two single brass bedsteads, and space enough to spare for mamma’s rocking-chair in front of a window that looks out on the Golden Gate.  The dining-room just holds, by a squeeze, the extension-table and four chairs; and the dot of a kitchen, with an enchanting gas-stove, completes the suite.

We are dining at a restaurant a short distance off, at present, and I cook the breakfasts and luncheons; but on Monday, as mamma is so well, I begin school from nine to twelve each day under a special arrangement, and we are to have a little Chinese boy who will assist in the work and go home at night to sleep.  His wages will be eight dollars a month, and the washing probably four dollars more.  This, with the rent, takes forty-two dollars from our eighty-five, and it remains to be seen whether it is too much.  I shall walk one way to school, although it is sixteen squares and all up and down hill. . . .