any ordinary girl
would have snapped up the moment he declared himself. He had three
safe-deposit boxes in town, and there was evidence in sight that he did
not rent them for the purpose of keeping cigars in them. He had several
horses and carriages. He was a regular attendant upon all the social
functions of the season, and at many of them he appeared to enjoy
himself hugely. At the musicals and purely literary entertainments,
however, Miles Dawson always looked, as he was, extremely bored. Once
Miss Henderson had seen him yawn at a Shelley reading. He was, in short,
of the earth earthy, or perhaps, to be more accurate, of the horse
horsey. Intellectual pleasures were naught to him but fountains of
ennui, and being a very honest, frank sort of a person, he took no pains
to conceal the fact, and it ruined his chances with Miss Henderson, at
whose feet he had more than once laid the contents of the
deposit-boxes--figuratively, of course--as well as the use of his
stables and himself. The fact that he looked like a Greek god did not
influence her in the least; she knew he was by nature a far cry from
anything Greek or godlike, and she would have none of him.

Had he had the mental qualities of Henry Webster, the famous scholar of
Cambridge, it might have been different, but he hadn't these any more
than Henry Webster had Dawson's Greek godliness of person.

As for Webster, he too had laid bare a heart full of affection before
the cold gaze of Miss Flora Henderson, and with no more pleasing results
to himself than had attended the suit of his handsome rival, as he had
considered Dawson.

"I think I can make you happy," he had said, modestly. "We have many
traits in common. We are both extremely fond of reading of the better
sort. You would prove of inestimable service to me in the advancement of
my ambition in letters, as well as in the educational world, and I think
you would find me by nature responsive to every wish you could have. I
am a lover of music, and so are you. We both delight in the study of
art, and there is in us both that inherent love of nature which would
make of this earth a very paradise for me were you to become my life's
companion."

Then Miss Flora Henderson had looked upon his stern and extremely homely
face, and had unconsciously even to herself glanced rapidly at his
uncouth figure, and could not bring herself to answer yes. Here was the
intellectual man, but his physical shortcomings forbade