The man who was to fall in love, as will be told, had, in the whirl of city life, almost forgotten the sturdy days when he was a youngster in the little district school, when at other times he rode a mare dragging an old-fashioned "cultivator," held by his father between the corn rows, and when the little farm hewed out of the woodland had yet stumps on every acre, when "loggings" and "raisings" drew the pioneers together, and when he, one of the first-born children of that region, had fled for comfort in every boyish strait to a gentle, firm-faced woman who was his mother. He had, with manhood, drifted to the city, and had become one of the city's cream in all acuteness and earnestness and what makes the pulse of life, when thousands and tens and hundreds of thousands congregate to live together in one vast hive. He was a man of affairs, a man of the world, easily at home among traders and schemers for money, at a political meeting, at a banquet, or in society. Sometimes, in the midst of things, would float before his eyes a vision of woods, of dark soil, of a buckwheat field, of squirrels on brush fences, of a broad, blue river, and finally of a face, maternal and sweet, with brown eyes, hovering over him watchfully and lovingly. He would think of the earnest, thoughtful, bold upbringing of him, and his heart would go out to the woman; but the tide of city affairs rose up and swept away the vision. Still, he was a good son, as good sons at a distance go, and occasionally wrote a letter to the woman growing older and older, or sent her some trifle for remembrance. He was reasonably content with himself. Here comes another phase of description in this brief account of affairs of the man who fell in love. One afternoon a woman sat in an arm-chair on the long porch in front of what might have by some been called a summer cottage, by others a farm-house, overlooking the St. Clair River. The chair she sat in was of oak, with no arms, and tilted easily backward, yet with no chance of tipping clear over. It must have cost originally about four dollars. In its early days it had possessed a cane back and cane bottom, through the round holes of which the little children were accustomed to thrust their fingers, getting them caught sometimes, and howling until released. Now its back was of stout canvas, and its seat of cords, upon which a cushion rested. It was in general appearance, though stout enough, a most disreputable chair among the finer and more modern ones which stood along the porch upon either side. But it was this chair that the aging woman loved. "It was this chair he liked," she would say, "and it shall not be discarded. He used to sit in it and rock and dream, and it shall stay there while I live." She spoke the truth. It was that old chair the boy, now the city man, had liked best of all.