When this story begins, Horace Ray was twenty-two years old, and Hester Bryan was twenty-one. I know that that is dreadfully old for a story, but how can I help that? Do you suppose I make it up as I go along? If they did not choose to be married when he was eighteen and she seventeen, can I help that? The truth is, that Hester's father was a man who liked to have his own way, and in some things had it. He had not had it in making a large fortune, though he had always tried for that. In that business he had failed,--had failed badly. He was always just close to it; but always, just as he touched the log on which he was to stand erect, quite out of the water, the log was pushed away by his touch, and floated quite out of reach, he paddling far behind. Hester's mother was in heaven, or things might have been made easier for her. As it was, her father would not hear of her marrying Horace till Horace should have something better than expectations, till he was fixed in a regular business, with a regular income. Perhaps Ohio is now so far established as a conservative and old-fashioned country that most fathers of charming girls in Ohio will agree with him. Yet I never heard of any one's starving in Ohio. They do say that no one was ever hungry there! Because of this horrible sentence of old Mr. Bryan--because of this--the happiest day of Horace's life was the day when he could come, at last, to Hester, and could tell her that he was appointed assistant engineer on the Scioto Valley Railroad, with a salary of one thousand dollars a year, to be increased by one hundred dollars at the end of the first year. Here was the "regular income in the regular business," and now all would be well. Would she be married in church, or would she rather go to Columbus, to be married quietly? For his part, he was all ready; he would like to be married that day. Of course this last part was only his little joke. But Hester, dear child, how well I remember how pretty and how cheerful she seemed all that week, and how little any of us thought of what was to come! Hester was by no means a prude, and she was as happy as he. And the news lighted up all the village. Everybody knew it, from the canal-locks up to the mills, and everybody was glad. Horace Ray had a good place, and he and Hester Bryan could be married right away.