"Have I referred, Sir," said I, "to the inelegant coin you name?" The creature grinned. "I shall pay your mother's income quarterly, and do the best I can by her," he continued; "and if you want to make a man of yourself, I'll give you a chance in the bakery with me; or Sam Bratley will take you into his brewery; or Bob into his pork-packery." I checked my indignation. The vulgarian wished to drag me, a Chylde, down to the Bratley level. But I suppressed my wrath, for fear he might find some pretext for suppressing the quarterly income, and alleged my delicate health as a reason for my refusing his insulting offer. "Well," said he, "I don't see as there is anything else for you to do, except to find some woman fool enough to marry you, as Betsey did your father. There's a hundred dollars!" I have seldom seen dirtier bills than those he produced and handed to me. Fortunately I was in deep mourning and my gloves were dark lead color. "That's right," says he,--"grab 'em and fob 'em. Now go to Newport and try for an heiress, and don't let me see your tallow face inside of my door for a year." He had bought the right to be despotic and abusive. I withdrew and departed, ruminating on his advice. Singularly, I had not before thought of marrying. I resolved to do so at once. Newport is the mart where the marriageable meet. I took my departure for Newport next day. II. THE HEROINE. I need hardly say, that, on arriving at Newport, one foggy August morning, I drove at once to the Millard. The Millard attracted me for three reasons: First, it was new; second, it was fashionable; third, the name would be sure to be in favor with the class I had resolved to seek my spouse among. The term _spouse_ I select as somewhat less familiar than _wife_, somewhat more permanent than _bride_, and somewhat less amatory than _the partner of my bosom_. I wish my style to be elevated, accurate, and decorous. It is my object, as the reader will have already observed, to convey heroic sentiments in the finest possible language. It was upon some favored individual of the class Southern Heiress that I designed to let fall the embroidered handkerchief of affectionate selection. At the Millard I was sure to find her. That enormously wealthy and highly distinguished gentleman, her father, would naturally avoid the Ocean House. The adjective _free_, so intimately connected with the _substantive_ ocean, would constantly occur to his mind and wound his sensibilities. The Atlantic House was still more out of the question. The name must perpetually remind the tenants of that hotel of a certain quite objectionable periodical devoted to propagandism. In short, not to pursue this process of elimination farther, and perhaps offend some friend of the class Hotel-Keeper, the Millard was not only about the cheese, _per se_,--I punningly allude here to the creaminess of its society,--but inevitably the place to seek my charmer.