Year: 1873

Eleanor Collins was the youngest child
and only daughter of Judge Collins of Col
linsvile, Mass. Tho Collins family be-
longed to the genuine New England aris-
tocracy; that is, they boasted that they
could trace their pedigree in direct line
from one of the passengers who crossed the
Atlantic in the Mayfower on her first trip
to America. 1t might have been task at
tended with some difficulty for the present
generation Of Collinses to produce dccu-
mentary evidence. to support this assertion,
but they could at least lay just claim to
quite goodly array of grandfathers, and
reat-grandfathers. Not only did the fad
ed pages of the family record in several
old Bibles, prove this genealogical point,
but sundry ancient family herlooms, to
wit, dozen or two of battered old tea
spoons, bruised and long suffering tea
pot, an ugly shaped little sugar-bowl, and
queer old tankard, all of silver, though
rather thin and quite decrepit from age,
still existed as tangible proofs that the Col
linses OF the past had been respectable, that
is, wel-to-do folks in their time.


But the Collins family did not need to
look back altogether to prove their
claims to consideration. If they could
boast of having among their foreiathers
and near relatives, doctors of divinity, pro-
fessors in Yale college, attorney generals,
one Senator and one Governor the old
Judge was every whit as good man in his
own and his townsmen's esteem as the best
of the race, and of his three sons, the ed-
est was a lawyer and a rising politician,
who bade fair to be a senator himself in
time; the second was a doctor in good
practice, and the third had recently Gradu-
ated at West Point, and was stationed on
the western frontier.


1t was II tradition that the girls of the
family had always done their part by judi
cious marriages TO build up the fortunes of
the Collnses, and there was no reason why
Eleanor the judges youngest child, should
not marry as well as the daughters of her
house were wont TO do. She was slender
New England girl, whose forehead was too
high, whose nose was large, and whose
mouth was too wide for the strict canons
of beauty; but she had transparent and
blooming complexion, large, soft grey eyes,
such wealth of bright, auburn hair, and
above all, so vivacious and changing an
expression, which illumined and trans
formed her face when she spoke that if her
claim TO real beauty might be justly dis
puied, that she was most charming was in
disputable. She was intelligent and toler-
ably well educated; she could read a little
oh ha1 aln
though she never exactly knew how she
did it she had parsed Mlton's Paradise
Lost she had studied chemistry and nat
ural philosophy, and knew enough about
them all for practical purposes, her father
was wont to say she did not dispute the
state ment, since she could not, by the Wild
est stretch of imagination, conceive of an
emergency in her every day life, where
she should be forced to apply these sciences
to actual use. She played the piano toler-
ably well, and sang the old songs her moth
er loved, 10 please her, and few of the
new to please herself, in a sweet, though
unframed voice. She was skilled in all
matters pertaining to the household. She
could bake cake, sweep, dust, iron, and as





Needle e-work WAS her delight, and her doft
fingers were equally at home in the shap-
ing of the commonest garments or the
daintiest arrangements of fine laces and
ribbons. She was cheery, sunny temper
ed girl, the idol of the household, and fa-
vorite with all who knew her. Everybody
predicted great match for her, and, in
fact, wooers were not lacking. Before she
was eighteen she had refused two of her
brothers. cadet class mates by the time
she was twenty, the list of her rejected suit
ors was increased by a clergyman, a doc
tor, and two merchants. In true New Eng
land fashion her father and mother had
looked on quietly at this procession of as
pirants for the post of their son-in-law,
neither interfering with the wooing as II
went on, nor with the summary rejectio II
of each suitor in his turn. There was time
enough for Eleanor to settle by and by, was
their unspoken thought, and surely they
were in no haste to lose her bright pres.
| ence from her childhood home. At TWEEN
| ty-three Eleanor was still unmarried, but
the year brought great change into hel
| life. Her father and mother died within
three months of each other, and at the same
time she had lost pal ents and home.


The judge had lived generously, though
not extravagsntly. His income had nevel
been large, and the education and estab-
lishment OF his sons had absorbed th,
greater part of his small economies. Whei
the estate was settled and divided among
the children, Eleanor's portion was mer'
pittance. The change was bitter to her
Her brothers, who were both married, Of
! fered her home in their families, but, al