NEW YORK, March 19, 1895. DEAREST MIRIAM,--You don't know how happy your letter has made me. I felt sure you would get over your tantrums sooner or later. Now you are my own little girl again, and soon you'll be my own little wife! But why must we put it off till June? The store closes on Decoration Day, you know, and I guess I can get the firm to let me have a day or two. So make it May 30th, won't you?--and perhaps we can take that trip to Niagara as you said you'd like to. JACK. (1895) [Illustration: On the Steps of the City Hall] A thin inch of dusty snow littered the frozen grass-plots surrounding the municipal buildings, and frequent scurries of wind kept swirling it again over the concrete walks whence it had been swept. The February sun--although it was within an hour of noon--could not break through the ashen clouds that shut out the sky. It was a depressing day, and yet there was no relaxation of energy in the men who were darting here and there eagerly, each intent on his errand, with eyes fixed on the goal and with lips set in stern determination. As Curtis Van Dyne thrust himself through the throng on the Broadway sidewalk, leaving the frowning Post-office behind him, and passing before the blithe effigy of Nathan Hale, he almost laughed aloud as it suddenly struck him how incongruous it was that a statue of a man who had gladly died for his country should be stuck there between two buildings filled with men who were looking to their country, to the nation or to the city, to provide them with a living. But he was in no mood for laughter, even saturnine; and if anything could have aroused his satire, it would have been not a graven image, but himself. He was in the habit of having a good opinion of himself, and he clung to his habits, especially to this one. Yet he was then divided between self-pity and self-contempt. For a good reason, so it seemed to him--and he was pleased to be able to think that it was an unselfish reason--he was going to take a step he did not quite approve of. He went all over the terms of the situation again as he turned from Broadway toward the City Hall; and the pressure of circumstances as he saw them brought him again to the same conclusion. Then he resolved not to let himself be worried by his own decision; if it was for the best, then there was no sense in not making the best of it. So intent was he on his own thought that he did not observe the expectant smile of an older man who was walking across the park in front of the City Hall, and who slackened his gait, supposing that the young lawyer would greet him. When Van Dyne passed on unseeing, the other man waited for a second and then called, "Curtis!" The young man had already begun to mount the steps. He turned sharply, as though any conversation would then be unwelcome, but when he saw who had hailed him he smiled cheerfully and held out his hand cordially.