She approached a brilliant store, passed it with lingering step, then paused, turned back, and stood looking down the glittering aisle. The large mirror at the farther end seemed scarcely broader than the little cracked bureau-glass in her humble room before which she dressed her hair in the mornings. The clerks were hurrying to and fro, eager and business-like, while fine ladies were coming and going, jostling her as she stood just outside the door. Among the hurrying forms her eye sought one familiar and loved: not a woman's, I need scarcely say, else why does she stand in the shadow there, with her veil half drawn over her face, trembling and frightened? Why else does her cheek glow with shame? Poor Mary! You feel like a guilty thing in thus seeking a man who has never declared his love; but let me whisper a word in your ear: True love is woman's blue ribbon of honor: without it her nature is the rose tree without the rose--the dead egg among the cliffs: quickened by the grand passion, it is the eagle soaring to the stars. Your heart is a grander thing now than ever before. Next to loving God, the best thing for woman is to love a good man. Take the comfort of this thought, and leave the humiliation to the heart too hard or too light for loving. Were I looking into your eyes, my reader, telling my story by word of mouth, I can fancy we might hold something like this dialogue: "Whom was Mary Trigillgus, this keeper of a small day-school--whom was she seeking in this brilliant store? One of the underclerks, perhaps?" "No." "The bookkeeper?" "No." "The confidential clerk?" "You must guess again." "The junior partner?" "No, it was Christian Van Pelt, the sole proprietor of that fine establishment, one of the merchant princes of the city." "But what right had Mary Trigillgus, this obscure school-teacher, to love this man of fortune? How did she ever come to his acquaintance?" And then I should tell you a very long story, and a tedious one perhaps, of two Hollanders, close friends, who settled in New Amsterdam; of how fortune had prospered the one until Christian Van Pelt, his lineal descendant, was among the leaders in the dry-goods trade of New York City; of how various disasters had befallen the family of the other, until the daughter of the house, and its only lineal descendant, Mary Trigillgus's mother, had married an intemperate spendthrift, who had at his death left her penniless, though the grandchild, Mary Trigillgus, had inherited the small house in which mother and daughter found a home. In the back parlor Mary kept a school for small children: the front chamber was let to a quiet man, who went down town at eight and returned at five, and whom they seldom saw except when he rapped at the sitting-room door on the first day of every month to hand in the three five-dollar bills which covered his rent. Besides these sources of revenue there were a few day-boarders, who sometimes paid for their keeping and sometimes did not.