The next summer Mrs. Percy bought a pretty little cottage on Oceanside, which she occupied season after season, while Jack grew to manhood and Clarice to a brilliant, beautiful girl. Mrs. Percy was a delicate woman, and, aside from the cheapness of the place compared with more fashionable resorts, the quiet and rest suited her, and she found her pleasant, airy cottage a delightful change from her rather stuffy house in Washington, with negro huts crowded close to it in the rear. Clarice, on the contrary, detested it and the people, and took no pains to conceal her dislike. She was a haughty girl, with all the pride of the Percys, from the bondman down to old Roger, her grandfather, who, up to the last, wore his dress suit to dinner when there was nothing better than bacon and eggs. She gloried in such pride as that, she said, and respected him far more than if he had sat down to his bacon and eggs in his shirt sleeves. She knew her father had been a Treasury clerk, but he was a Percy and a gentleman, and she had no fault to find with him except that he did not leave more money. She wanted to be rich and live in the style of rich people. She would like to have had a large establishment, with housekeeper and butler and maids and horses and carriages, and she meant to have all this some time, no matter at what sacrifice. Given her choice between a man she loved who was poor, and a man she didn’t love who was rich and not obnoxious to her, she would unhesitatingly have taken the latter and overlooked any little escapades of which he might be guilty, provided he gave her all the money she wanted. In marrying Paul Ralston she was getting everything she desired,—family, position, love and money. She had had Paul in her mind for some time as a most desirable _parti_, provided one more desirable was not forthcoming. In Washington, where her beauty attracted a great deal of attention, she was much sought after by men who, while pleasing her in many respects, lacked the one thing needful. In Oak City, to which she always went unwillingly, she frequently met men of her style,—_class_ she called it,—and in this class Paul stood pre-eminent. With Ralph Fenner, whom Miss Hansford had designated as a snipper-snapper, she had flirted outrageously, but with no serious intent. He was too poor, and, although there was a title in his family, there were three lives between it and himself. To marry him would not pay, and over and above any other reasons which might influence her, she had a genuine liking for Paul, and when he asked her to be his wife she unhesitatingly answered yes.