The two brothers, Richard and Henry Clifton, had been separated for many
years. When Richard was seventeen years of age, his father indulged him in
his earnest desire to become a merchant. At a great pecuniary sacrifice, he
was placed in the employment of an intelligent and prosperous merchant in
New York; and when, at the age of twenty-one, he was admitted as a member
of the firm, his patrimony was given him to be invested in the concern.

To his remaining son, Henry, Mr. Clifton offered a collegiate education.
This offer was declined by Henry, not through lack of a desire for
knowledge, but in consequence of a too humble estimate of his mental
powers. When he became of age, a deed of the homestead was given him. Not
long afterwards, his father was carried to his long home.

The business of the firm to which Richard Clifton belonged rendered it
necessary for him to repair to a foreign city, where he resided for fifteen
years. He was now on his first visit to his native place, subsequent to his
return to the commercial emporium.

Susan, the only child of Henry and Mary Clifton, was just sixteen years of
age. Her light form, transparent countenance, brilliant eye, and graceful
movements, were not in keeping with the theory that rusticity must be the
necessary result of living in a farmhouse, especially when the labors
thereof are not performed by hireling hands.

From the first day of his visit, the heart of the merchant warmed towards
the child of his only brother. Her delicate and affectionate attentions
increased the interest he felt in her. That interest was not at all
lessened by a distinct perception of the fact that she was fitted to adorn
the magnificent parlors of his city residence. It was, therefore, his fixed