thing I heard about the family--and it seemed as if
suddenly each chance acquaintance that I met had something to say about
Mr. Preston either as a banker or a man, only served to confirm me in
this view. "He is a money worshipper," said one. "The bluest of blue
Presbyterians," declared another. "The enemy of presumption and anything
that looks like an overweening confidence in one's own worth or
capabilities," remarked a third. "A man who would beggar himself to save
the honor of a corporation with which he was concerned," observed a
fourth "but who would not invite to his table the most influential man
connected with it if that man was unable to trace his family back to the
old Dutch settlers to which Mr. Preston's own ancestors belonged."

This latter statement I have no doubt was exaggerated for I myself have
seen him at dinners where half the gentlemen who lifted the wine glass
were self-made in every sense of the term. But it showed the bent of his
mind and it was a bent that left me entirely out of the sweep of his
acquaintanceship much less that of his exquisite daughter, the pride of
his soul if not the jewel of his heart.

But when will a man who has seen or who flatters himself that he has
seen in the eyes of the woman he admires, the least spark of that fire
which is consuming his own soul, pause at an obstacle which after all
has its basis simply in circumstances of position or will. By the time
the two weeks of her expected absence had expired, I had settled it in
my own mind that I would see her again and if I found the passing
caprice of a child was likely to blossom into the steady regard of a
woman, risk all in the attempt to win by honorable endeavor and
persistence this bud of loveliness for my future wife.

How I finally succeeded by means of my friend Farrar in being one
evening invited to the same house as Miss Preston it is not necessary to
state. You will believe me it was done with the utmost regard for her
feelings and in a way that deceived Farrar himself, who if he is the
most prying is certainly the most volatile of men. In a crowded parlor,
then, in the midst of the flash of diamonds and the flutter of fans Miss
Preston and I again met. When I first saw her she was engaged in
conversation with some young companion, and I had the pleasure of
watching for a few minutes, unobserved, the play of her ingenuous
countenance, as she talked with her friend, or sat silently watching the
brilliant