s
as she welcomed him home at night, leaning over the gate in the pale
buff muslin he liked so much, with rosebuds in her hair.

He had seen her thus so often in fancy, that the picture had become a
reality, and refused to be erased at once from the mental canvas, when,
in January, Miss Nettie Hudson, niece to Mrs. General Tophevie, came
from Philadelphia, and at once took prestige of everything on the
strength of the one hundred thousand dollars of which she was sole
heiress. The Hudson blood was a mixture of blacksmith's and shoemaker's,
and peddler's too, it was said; but that was far back in the past. The
Hudsons of the present day scarcely knew whether peddler were spelled
with two d's or one. They bought their shoes at the most fashionable
shops, and could, if they chose, have their horses shod with gold, and
so the handsome Nettie reigned supreme as belle. The moment Mrs. Dr. Van
Buren saw her, she recognized her daughter-in-law, the future Mrs.
Frank, and Ethie's fate was sealed. There had been times when Mrs. Dr.
Van Buren thought it possible that Ethelyn might, after all, be the most
favored of women, the wife of her son. These times were at Saratoga, and
Newport, and Nahant, where Ethelyn Grant was more sought after than any
young lady there, and where the proud woman herself took pride in
talking of "my niece," hinting once, when Ethelyn's star was at its
height, of a childish affaire du coeur between the young lady and her
son, and insinuating that it might yet amount to something. She changed
her mind when Nettie came with her one hundred thousand dollars, and
showed a willingness to be admired by Frank. That childish affaire du
coeur was a very childish affair, indeed; she never gave it a moment's
thought herself--she greatly doubted if Frank had ever been in earnest,
and if Ethelyn had led him into an entanglement, she would not, of
course, hold him to his promise if he wished to be released. He must
have a rich wife to support him in his refined tastes and luxurious
habits, for her own fortune was not so great as many supposed. She might
need it all herself, as she was far from being old, and then again it
was wicked for cousins to marry each other. It did not matter if the
mothers were only half-sisters; there was the same blood in the veins of
each, and it would not do at all, even if Ethelyn's affections were
enlisted, which Mrs. Van Buren greatly doubted.

This was what Mrs. Dr. Van Buren said to E