e comfort of this thought, and
leave the humiliation to the heart too hard or too light for loving.

Were I looking into your eyes, my reader, telling my story by word of
mouth, I can fancy we might hold something like this dialogue: "Whom was
Mary Trigillgus, this keeper of a small day-school--whom was she seeking
in this brilliant store? One of the underclerks, perhaps?" "No." "The
bookkeeper?" "No." "The confidential clerk?" "You must guess again."
"The junior partner?" "No, it was Christian Van Pelt, the sole
proprietor of that fine establishment, one of the merchant princes of
the city." "But what right had Mary Trigillgus, this obscure
school-teacher, to love this man of fortune? How did she ever come to
his acquaintance?" And then I should tell you a very long story, and a
tedious one perhaps, of two Hollanders, close friends, who settled in
New Amsterdam; of how fortune had prospered the one until Christian Van
Pelt, his lineal descendant, was among the leaders in the dry-goods
trade of New York City; of how various disasters had befallen the family
of the other, until the daughter of the house, and its only lineal
descendant, Mary Trigillgus's mother, had married an intemperate
spendthrift, who had at his death left her penniless, though the
grandchild, Mary Trigillgus, had inherited the small house in which
mother and daughter found a home.

In the back parlor Mary kept a school for small children: the front
chamber was let to a quiet man, who went down town at eight and returned
at five, and whom they seldom saw except when he rapped at the
sitting-room door on the first day of every month to hand in the three
five-dollar bills which covered his rent. Besides these sources of
revenue there were a few day-boarders, who sometimes paid for their
keeping and sometimes did not.

An intercourse and a show of friendship had all along been maintained
between the families of these Hollanders; and now Mrs. Van Pelt, the
young merchant's mother, was to give a large party. Mary Trigillgus had
been invited, and her mother had insisted on an acceptance of the
invitation.

"They are quite friendly to you, Mary, and you can't afford to throw
away such friends," the mother said.

So it was for Christian Van Pelt's broad, square figure that Mary's
eager eyes were seeking; but in vain they sought: it was nowhere to be
seen. A choking feeling of disappointment rose in her heart--a
disappointment very unequal to the occasio