the utterance of
the word which should make Henry Webster the happiest of men. Had he
written his proposal he would have stood a better chance, though I
doubt that in any event he could have succeeded. Then he could have
stood at least as an abstract mentality, but the intrusion of his
physical self destroyed all. She refused him, and he went back to his
books, oppressed by an overwhelming sense of loneliness, from which he
did not recover for one or two hours.

So it went with all the others. No man of all those who sought Miss
Henderson's favor had the godlike grace of Miles Dawson, combined with
the strong intellectuality of Henry Webster, with the added virtues of
wealth and amiability, steadfastness of purpose, and all that. It seemed
sometimes to Miss Flora Henderson, as it had often seemed to Mr.
Augustus Richards, that the standard set was too high, and that an
all-wise Providence was no longer sending the perfect being of the ideal
into the world, if, indeed, He had ever done so.

Both the man and the woman were yearning, they came finally to believe,
after the unattainable, but each was strong enough of character to do
with nothing less excellent.

III

A GLANCE AT MISS FLORA HENDERSON HERSELF

But what sort of a woman was Miss Flora Henderson, it may be asked, that
she should demand so much in the man with whom she should share the
burdens of life? Surely one should be wellnigh perfect one's self to
require so much of another--and I really think Miss Flora Henderson was
so.

In the first place, she was tall and stately--Junoesque some people
called her. She had an eye fit for all things. It was soft or hard, as
one wished it. It was melting or fixed, according to the mood one would
have her betray. She was never flippant, and while the small things of
life interested her to an extent, much more absorbed was she in the
great things which pertain to existence. Dance she could, and well, but
she danced not to the exclusion of all other things. With dancing people
she was a dancer full of the poetry of motion, and enjoying it openly
and innocently. With a man of learning, however, she was equally at
home as with the callow youth. With nature in her every mood was she in
sympathy. She was fond of poetry and of music; indeed, to sum up her
character in as few words as possible, she was everything that so
critical a dreamer of the ideal as Mr. Augustus Richards could have
wished for, nor was there one wea