The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-01-22
CHAPTER I.


 Of all the pretty suburbs that still adorfs our metropolis there are few that exceed in charm Clapham Common. An uninclosed park of 200 acres, well-turf- cd and timbered, and, though free to all and without-a paling, so well man aged that a domain in a distant county could scarcely be more orderly and re- fined.
 Those who live about this agreeable spot have shown. by the solid conve- nience and rich comfort of their dwell- ings. that they appreciate the pleasant place where their lot has been cast, and do not contemplate that they or their posterity should quit or desert It.. Many of the red-brick structures have the true character of the manor house, and are varied now and then by build ings of a moro ornate and villa style' but still firm and compact, in the man ner which the Brother Adams intro duced at the beginning of this century. All of them are surrounded by ample and old-fashioned gardens; Of late, however, much modernized, and so los- ing something of their picturesque stateliness, though they now abound with houses of glass of every form and for every purpose.
 The dwellers in these homes have, generally speaking, peculiar. charac-
 
 are chiefly rich merchants, Directors of the Bank of England. men whose fath- CTS were Directors of the East India Company, or Chairmen of the great docks that were built in the port of London during the great war. The new class of railway magnates are rarely found here. Their fortunes have been made in modern times, and by means which allow them to live much further from the city and yet find themselves as early every morning at their boards and counting houses as the old families at Clapham, who after all, are only four miles from Cornhill. But the very fact that. comparativly speaking. they are old families, and that there is no inglorious tradition among them of philanthrophy and piety, of good and great works. and of some names that are even illustrious. binds them to the sacred soil by that local spell which is one of the most powerful influences over mankind.
 MT. Falconet was the head of one of the most considerable of these fami- lies. His father, an East Indian Di- rector, had been an intimate friend and companion of Mir. Wilberforce, who lived in his immediate neighborhood and who was the godfather of his son. He had supported Mir. Wilberforce in all ms great WAlh hlS phA oS as well as his personal energy. His son, MT. Wilberforce Falconet. had married, according to the Clapham cus- tom, at an early age, a young lady who lived at Lavender Hill. and whose father was another friend of MT. Will berforce. Even in the enthusiastic world in which she was born the bride was remarkable for the exaltation of her ideas. She was the founder of many institutions and the soul of all. Schools and hymns and Bible classes and tract distributions and industrial homes engrossed her life. But she was pretty, and Wilberforce Falconet lost his heart to her. He himself quite sympathized with all her pursuits and purposes. and had, indeed. been born and bred in a similar religious and moral atmosphere to her own. This. however, did not prevent him from having the reputation of being a frst- rate man of business. Indeed, he was sometimes thought 10 be a little too nhar6 in his transactions. in which a