to
the _elegantes_ before the counter, and the decision with which they
promulgated the decrees of fashion; and with that just sense of his own
powers, which is the accompaniment of true genius, he decided at once
that there lay his vocation. George, who had not been without difficulty
kept quiet, while his brother was forming his decision, as soon as it
was announced, sprang forward with a whoop that would have suited a
Western forest better than a New-York drawing-room, threw the Horace he
was reading across the table, clasped first his mother and then his
uncle in his arms, and exclaimed, "I am the boy for the West. I will
help you fell forests and build cities there, uncle. Why should not we
build cities as well as Romulus and Remus?"

"I will supply your cities with all their silks, and satins, and
velvets, and laces, and charge them nothing, George," said Henry
Manning, with that air of superiority with which the worldly-wise often
look on the sallies of the enthusiast.

"You make my head ache, my son," complained Mrs. Manning, shrinking from
his boisterous gratulation;--but Mr. Morgan returned his hearty embrace,
and as he gazed into his bold, bright face, with an eye as bright as his
own, replied to his burst of enthusiasm, "You _are_ the very boy for the
West, George. It is out of such brave stuff that pioneers and
city-builders are always made."

Henry Manning soon bowed himself into the favor of the ladies who formed
the principal customers of his employer. By his careful and really
correct habits, and his elegant taste in the selection and arrangement
of goods, he became also a favorite with his employers themselves. They
needed an agent for the selection of goods abroad, and they sent him. He
purchased cloths for them in England, and silks in France, and came home
with the reputation of a travelled man. Having persuaded his mother to
advance a capital for him by selling out the bank stock in which Mr.
Morgan had founded her little fortune, at twenty-four years of age he
commenced business for himself as a French importer. Leaving a partner
to attend to the sales at home, he went abroad for the selection of
goods, and the further enhancement of his social reputation. He returned
in two years with a fashionable figure, a most _recherche_ style of
dress, moustachios of the most approved cut, and whiskers of faultless
curl--a finished gentleman in his own conceit. With such attractions,
the _prestige_ which