The Spinners Book of Fiction | Page 2

Spinners soon after the eighteenth of April, 1906, and was
started with two hundred dollars from their treasury. To this, Mrs.
Gertrude Atherton added another two hundred dollars. Several
women's clubs and private individuals also generously responded, so
that now there is a thousand dollars to the credit of the fund. A bond
has been bought and the interest from it will be paid to Ina D.
Coolbrith, the poet, and first chosen beneficiary of the fund. The
Spinners feel assured that this book will meet with such a ready sale as
to make possible the purchase of several bonds, and so render the
accruing interest a steady source of aid to Miss. Coolbrith.

All who have read and fallen under the charm of her "Songs from the
Golden Gate," or felt the beauty and tenderness of the verses "When
the Grass Shall Cover Me," will, without question, unite in making
"assurance doubly sure" to such end.
From the days of the old Overland Monthly, when she worked side by
side with Bret Harte and Charles Warren Stoddard, to the present
moment, Miss. Coolbrith's name has formed a part of the literary
history of San Francisco.
The eighteenth of April, 1906, and the night which followed it, left her
bereft of all literary, and other, treasures; but her poem bearing the
refrain, "Lost city of my love and my desire," rings with the old genius,
and expresses the feeling of many made desolate by the destruction of
the city which held their most cherished memories.
When Miss. Coolbrith shall no longer need to be a beneficiary of the
fund, it is intended that it shall serve to aid some other writer, artist or
musician whose fortunes are at the ebb.
To the writers, artists and publishers who have so heartily and
generously made this book possible, The Spinners return unmeasured
thanks.
San Francisco, June 22, 1907.

CONCHA ARGÜELLO, SISTER DOMINICA
BY
GERTRUDE ATHERTON
DEDICATED TO CAROLINA XIMÉNO
Written for THE SPINNERS' BOOK OF FICTION All Rights Reserved
SISTER TERESA had wept bitterly for two days. The vanity for which

she did penance whenever her madonna loveliness, consummated by
the white robe and veil of her novitiate, tempted her to one of the little
mirrors in the pupil's dormitory, was powerless to check the blighting
flow. There had been moments when she had argued that her vanity had
its rights, for had it not played its part in weaning her from the
world?--that wicked world of San Francisco, whose very breath,
accompanying her family on their monthly visits to Benicia, made her
cross herself and pray that all good girls whom fate had stranded there
should find the peace and shelter of Saint Catherine of Siena. It was
true that before Sister Dominica toiled up Rincon Hill on that
wonderful day--here her sobs became so violent that Sister María Sal,
praying beside her with a face as swollen as her own, gave her a sharp
poke in the ribs, and she pressed her hands to her mouth lest she be
marched away. But her thoughts flowed on; she could pray no more.
Sister Dominica, with her romantic history and holy life, her halo of
fame in the young country, and her unconquerable beauty--she had
never seen such eyelashes, never, never!--what was she thinking of at
such a time? She had never believed that such divine radiance could
emanate from any mortal; never had dreamed that beauty and grace
could be so enhanced by a white robe and a black veil----Oh, well! Her
mind was in a rebellious mood; it had been in leash too long. And what
of it for once in a way? No ball dress she had ever seen in the gay
disreputable little city--where the good citizens hung the bad for want
of law--was half as becoming as the habit of the Dominican nun, and if
it played a part in weaning frivolous girls from the world, so much
more to the credit of Rome. God knew she had never regretted her
flight up the bays, and even had it not been for the perfidy of--she had
forgotten his name; that at least was dead!--she would have realized her
vocation the moment Sister Dominica sounded the call. When the
famous nun, with that passionate humility all her own, had implored
her to renounce the world, protested that her vocation was written in
her face--she really looked like a juvenile mater dolorosa, particularly
when she rolled up her eyes--eloquently demanded what alternative that
hideous embryo of a city could give her--that rude and noisy city that
looked as if it had been tossed together in a night after one of its
periodical fires, where the ill-made sidewalks tripped the unwary foot,
or the winter mud was like a swamp, where