tried its pleasures, drinking the cup
of freedom and happiness to its very dregs, and though he thought he
liked it, he often found himself dissatisfied and reaching after
something which should make life more real, more worth the living for.
He had traveled all over Europe twice, had visited every spot worth
visiting in his own country, had been a frequenter of every fashionable
resort in New York, from the skating pond to the theatres, had been
admitted as a lawyer, had opened an office on Broadway, acquiring some
reputation in his profession, had looked at more than twenty girls with
the view of making them his wife, and found them as he believed, alike
fickle, selfish, artificial and hollow-hearted. In short, while thinking
far more of family, and accomplishments, and style, than he ought, he
was yet heartily tired of the butterflies who flitted so constantly
around him, offering to be caught if he would but stretch out his hand
to catch them. This he would not do, and disgusted with the world as he
saw it in New York, he had gone to the Far West, roaming a while amid
the solitude of the broad prairies, and finding there much that was
soothing to him, but not discovering the fulfillment of the great want
he was craving, until, coming back to Canandaigua, he met with Katy
Lennox. He had smiled wearily when asked by Mrs. Woodhull to go with her
to the examination then in progress at the seminary. There was nothing
there to interest him, he thought, as Euclid and algebra, French and
rhetoric were bygone things, while young school misses in braided hair
and pantalets were shockingly insipid. Still, to be polite to Mrs.
Woodhull, a childless, fashionable woman, who patronized Canandaigua
generally, and Katy Lennox in particular, he consented to go, and soon
found himself in the crowded room, the cynosure of many eyes as the
whisper ran around that the fine-looking man with Mrs. Woodhull was the
Wilford Cameron from New York, and brother to the proud, dashing Juno
Cameron, who once spent a few weeks in town, Wilford knew they were
talking about him, but he did not care, and assuming as easy an attitude
as possible, he leaned hack in his chair, yawning indolently, and
wishing the time away, until the class in algebra was called and Katy
Lennox came tripping on to the stage, a pale blue ribbon in her golden
hair and her simple dress of white relieved by no ornament except the
cluster of wild flowers fastened in her belt and a