mansion on the cast bank of the Hudson the passengers pointed at it
with deference. Even when the search lights pointed at it, it was
with deference. And on Fifth Avenue, as the "Seeing New York" car
passed his town house it slowed respectfully to half speed. When,
apparently for no other reason than that she was good and
beautiful, he had married the sister of a then unknown up State
lawyer, every one felt Hamilton Cutler had made his first mistake.
But, like every thing else into which he entered, for him matrimony
also was a success. The prettiest girl in Utica showed herself
worthy of her distinguished husband. She had given him children as
beautiful as herself; as what Washington calls " a cabinet lady "
she had kept her name out of the newspapers; as Madame
L'Ambassatrice she had put archduchesses at their ease; and after
ten years she was an adoring wife, a devoted mother, and a proud
woman. Her pride was in believing that for every joy she knew she
was indebted entirely to her husband. To owe everything to him, to
feel that through him the blessings flowed, was her ideal of
happiness.

In this ideal her brother did not share. Her delight in a sense of
obligation left him quite cold. No one better than himself knew
that his rapid-fire rise in public favor was due to his own
exertions, to the fact that he had worked very hard, had been
independent, had kept his hands clean, and had worn no man's
collar. Other people believed he owed his advancement to his
brother-in-law. He knew they believed that, and it hurt him. When,
at the annual dinner of the Amen Corner, they burlesqued him as
singing to "Ham" Cutler, "You made me what I am to-day, I hope
you're satisfied," he found that to laugh with the others was
something of an effort. His was a difficult position. He was a