She would kiss the soles of David Lockwin's feet, were he dead. She
could kiss his feet were he despised and rejected among men.

Yet she is counted the haughtiest woman that goes by.

"Mrs. Lockwin is a double-decker," the grocer declares to his head
clerk. "She rides mighty high out of the water."

The grocer used to haul lumber from Muskegon. His metaphors smell of
the deep.

For ten years young men of all temperaments had besieged this lady.
The fame of her money had entranced them. Suitors who were afraid of
her distinguished person still paid court, smitten by the love of money.

She was so proud that she must marry a proud man. She must marry a man
conspicuous, tall, large, slow. She must banish from her mind that
hateful fear of the man who might want her for her financial
expectations.

Sometimes when she surveyed the matrimonial field she noted that the
eligible suitors were few.

Men with blonde mustaches of extreme length would recite lovers' poems.
Men with jet-black hair, eyes and beard would be equally foolish. The
lady would listen politely to both.

"It is the Manitoba cold wave!" the lovers would lament as they left
her.