Wilson found himself of just as much social importance to Fanny as a piano or an algebra. She would have been just as much interested in a calculating machine; and if her piano could have taught her to play on it, she would have been neither better or worse pleased than now. To be sure she was glad when her Aunt Evans told her of the struggles of young Wilson to educate himself that she had him for a teacher, but she never thought enough of him to mention him to Mr. Evans; first, because she seldom needed his help in her mathematical studies, and of music she never spoke to her cousin. Wilson was prudent and careful. He had good hope of getting into the University—in time of a pulpit, and a rich wife. No word, or look, or overt act ever revealed to Fanny or her friends, that he had designs on the fortune of Mr. Evans, through a marriage with his ward. For months he labored assiduously, when an accident occurred that changed the face of his fortune, though, perhaps, it did not materially affect Fanny. A merchant uncle of Wilson, who lived at New Orleans, found himself in need of an assistant, in consequence of failing health. He was a man of wealth, and Wilson considered his fortune assured by this chance—and so the church lost the chance of adding to her ornaments another of those paste gems that bring the real jewels into disrepute. CHAPTER V. Seventeen! sweet, gay, laughing seventeen had come to Fanny—and she had never once thought of getting married. Not she. She would have been obliged to contemplate marriage as something that must separate her from the only home she had ever known; and she would as soon have stepped out of her skin some cold night, as have gone away from her dear friends. She liked everybody and loved nobody, and wanted to hug the whole world, as she forcibly said, because she was so happy. “Christmas Eve, to-morrow, Cousin Charles; I hope all my presents are purchased and directed.” “And what are you going to give _me_, little Miss Fairy?” “Myself, to be sure,” laughed Fanny. “What else have I to give away?” “No, that you wont. You will keep yourself for some worthless fellow, I’ll warrant.” “No, I thank you. I had rather be excused. I intend to make your black tea as long as you live, if you don’t conclude to leave the tea out, and take water with me.” “I tell you, you will marry a scamp the day after you are eighteen—that is the way with all the women.” “There must be a prodigious number of scamps, then, cousin; and if you had only been one of them, you might have been _happily married_, instead of being the nicest bear of a bachelor at large.” “I think I might get married even now, if I were only fool enough.”