Here Adelaide paused; she had come to the house of the friend she proposed to visit, and from the gate she pointed out the trees that grew so abundantly on the Bowden place, and her attitude seemed to say to the young man that should he get lost, he would be safe so long as she was within calling distance. He had been used to more dignity and less charm on the part of most of the young women he knew, and he rather preferred the variety which he had now come in contact with for the first time. And yet, when he came to the old homestead, where his grandfather lived and died, and where his mother was born, he was attacked by none of the emotions that would have seized upon the soul of his mother. He had been educated in a different environment, and he was essentially modern in his sense of the importance of business affairs. As he read the friendly inscription on the tomb of his grandfather--the family burying-ground being not far from the picturesquely simple old house--he was conscious of a strong desire to know whether failure or success would crown his negotiations with Mr. Jonas Whipple. The vagrant winds blew through the tops of trees more than two centuries old, the house frowned grimly over the reminiscences of past hospitality, and the whole scene appealed strongly to sentiments that are now said not to be strictly scientific. But it must not be supposed that the young man had no poetry in his soul, or that his nature was free from emotions of a sentimental character. He lived entirely in the present, and the past had no meaning for him save that which was coldly historical. He found his inspiration in the rhythmical clatter and cackle of intricate machinery; he was stirred by the interweaving and interlacing business problems, and the whole movement, shape, and pattern of huge commercial enterprises.