ourage to go on boldly about my
wooing. In fact, I left a great deal to chance, and chance in this case
treated me very kindly.

Some time later, when the summer days were long, I met her again in
company with a Miss Cobb, later the wife of Johnnie McMullen, the
base-ball pitcher, at Fairmount Park, and that was the day of my
undoing. After a pleasant time I accompanied her home to luncheon at
her invitation, and that I had lost my heart long before the door of
her house was reached I am now certain.

Once inside the door I asked her rather abruptly if her father or mother
was at home, and I fancied she looked rather relieved when she found out
that the only reason that I had asked her was that I wanted to smoke a
cigar, and not to loot the house of its valuables.

Prior to that time I had circulated among the ladies but little, my
whole mind having been concentrated on base-ball and billiard playing,
and the particular fit of my coat or the fashion of my trousers caused
me but little concern. From that afternoon on, however, things were
different, and I am afraid that I spent more time before the mirror than
was really necessary. I also began to hunt up excuses of various kinds
for visiting the house of the Fiegals, and some of these were of the
flimsiest character. I fancied then that I was deceiving the entire
family, but I know now that I was deceiving only myself.

I was not the only ball player that laid siege to Miss Virginia's heart
in those days. There was another, the handsome and debonair Charlie
Snyder, who was a great favorite with the girls wherever he went. I
became jealous very early in the game of Charlie's attentions to the
young lady that I had determined upon making Mrs. Anson. It was rather
annoying to have him dropping in when I had planned to have her all to
myself for an evening, and still more annoying to find him snugly
ensconced in the parlor when I myself put in an appearance on the scene.

So unbearable did this become that I finally informed him that I would
stand no more trespassing on my stamping grounds, and advised him to
keep away. But to this he paid but little attention and it was not until
my sweetheart herself, at my request, gave him his conge that he
refrained from longer calling at the house. It was the old story of "two
is company, three is none," and I was greatly relieved when he abandoned
the field.

I was now the fair Virginia's steady company, and long before I came