“All the world knew that I was affianced to the handsome Frank Harcourt, and I was quite willing to enjoy my triumph as long as possible, before I settled myself down to the dull routine of domestic life. This disposition to defer my marriage might have led me to suspect the nature of my feelings, for no woman will ever shrink from a union with one to whom her soul is knit in the close bonds of affection. My lover was respectably connected, but had been educated for no profession and was not possessed of fortune. He had left his native village to find employment, and, as he hoped, wealth, in the busy mart of the Empire state. How he managed to satisfy my father, who, in the true spirit of an old Dutch burgomaster, looked upon every man as a rogue if he did not possess some visible occupation, I never could discover. He probably flattered his self-love by listening to all his schemes for the reformation of society; and, I am not sure that he did not draw up the constitution and by-laws of a certain association which my father wished to establish,—to be entitled a “Society for the Encouragement of Integrity among men of Business,” and of which the old gentleman meant to constitute himself president. “It was agreed that our marriage should take place at the expiration of a year, and my father (who was as fond of coincidents as a newspaper editor) declared that on the very day of our nuptials, the name of Harcourt should be added to the very respectable firm of Marchmont, Goodfellow & Co. About this part of the arrangement I cared very little. I enjoyed the present moment, and lavished my time, my thoughts and my feelings as foolishly as I did the gold with which my father supplied me. I was a mere child in my knowledge of the duties of life, and perhaps there never was one of my age to whom the word ‘_responsibility_’ was so mystical a sound. “I soon discovered that I had a serious rival in the affections of my future husband. Frank Harcourt loved himself far better than he did his mistress; and though his tact enabled him to avoid any offensive expression of this Narcissus-like preference, it was still very perceptible to me. Yet how could I blame him when I looked upon his handsome person? Indeed I often found myself quoting Pope’s celebrated couplet, but with a difference, “If to his share a coxcomb’s errors fall, Look in his face and you forget them all.”