to be cashier, and then president, and money and friends poured in upon
him, and Geraldine's drawing-rooms were filled with the elite of the
city. The fashionables, the scholars, the artists, and musicians, and
whoever was in any degree famous, met with favor from Mrs. Geraldine,
who liked nothing better than to fill her house with such people, and
fancy herself a second Madame De Stael, in her character as hostess. All
this was very pleasing to Burton, who, having recovered from any
sentimental feeling he might have entertained for Lucy, blessed the good
fortune which gave him Geraldine instead. He never asked himself if he
loved her; he only knew that he admired, and revered, and worshiped her
as a woman of genius and tact; that what she thought, he thought; what
she wished, he wished; and what she did he was bound to say was right,
and make others think so too. There had been a condescension on her part
when she married him, and she never let him forget it; while he, too,
mentally acknowledged it, and felt that, for it, he owed her perfect
allegiance, from which he never swerved.




CHAPTER II.

GREY JERROLD.


Just a year after the grand wedding at Grey's Park, there was born to
Burton and Geraldine a little boy, so small and frail and puny, that
much solicitude would have been felt for him had there not been a
greater anxiety for the young mother, who went so far down toward the
river of death that every other thought was lost in the great fear for