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 to Chicago we understood each other so well that I ceased to worry about any of the callers at her home and began to dream of the time when I should have one of my own in which she should be the presiding genius of the hearth-stone. She was not in favor of my coming to Chicago, and had it been possible for me to remain with honor in Philadelphia I should have done so, but that being impossible I left for the great metropolis of the West, promising to return for her providing her father would give his consent to our marriage as soon as possible.