then taken him into the store, where he had swept the
floor, washed the windows, and done a class of work that kept fully
impressed upon him the fact that he was a poor dependent. Nevertheless
he was a cheerful lad, who took what he could get and was properly
grateful, but always meant to get more. By sheer force of industry and
affability and shrewdness, he forced his employer to promote him in time
to a position of recognized authority in the establishment. Any one
outside of the family would have perceived in him a very suitable
husband for Miss Clayton; he was of about the same age, or a year or two
older, was as fair of complexion as she, when she was not powdered, and
was passably good-looking, with a bearing of which the natural manliness
had been no more warped than his training and racial status had rendered
inevitable; for he had early learned the law of growth, that to bend is
better than to break. He was sometimes sent to accompany Miss Clayton to
places in the evening, when she had no other escort, and it is quite
likely that she discovered his good points before her parents did. That
they should in time perceive them was inevitable. But even then, so
accustomed were they to looking down upon the object of their former
bounty, that they only spoke of the matter jocularly.

"Well, Alice," her father would say in his bluff way, "you 'll not be
absolutely obliged to die an old maid. If we can't find anything better
for you, there 's always Jack. As long as he does n't take to some other
girl, you can fall back on him as a last chance. He 'd be glad to take
you to get into the business."

Miss Alice had considered the joke a very poor one when first made, but
by occasional repetition she became somewhat familiar with it. In time
it got around to Jack himself, to whom it seemed no joke at all. He had
long considered it a consummation devoutly to be wished, and when he
became aware that the possibility of such a match had occurred to the
other parties in interest, he made up his mind that the idea should in
due course of time become an accomplished fact. He had even suggested as
much to Alice, in a casual way, to feel his ground; and while she had
treated the matter lightly, he was not without hope that she had been
impressed by the suggestion. Before he had had time, however, to follow
up this lead, Miss Clayton, in the spring of 187-, went away on a visit
to Washington.

The occasion of her visit was a presi