I could not figure out that amongst her acquaintances in Stamford
there was any fellow that would fill the bill. The most of them
were not as wealthy as I, and those that were were not the type to
give up the fascinations of Wall Street even for the protracted
companionship of Florence. But nothing really happened during
the month of July. On the 1st of August Florence apparently told
her aunts that she intended to marry me.

She had not told me so, but there was no doubt about the aunts,
for, on that afternoon, Miss Florence Hurlbird, Senior, stopped me
on my way to Florence's sitting-room and took me, agitatedly, into
the parlour. It was a singular interview, in that old-fashioned
colonial room, with the spindle-legged furniture, the silhouettes,
the miniatures, the portrait of General Braddock, and the smell of
lavender. You see, the two poor maiden ladies were in
agonies--and they could not say one single thing direct. They
would almost wring their hands and ask if I had considered such a
thing as different temperaments. I assure you they were almost
affectionate, concerned for me even, as if Florence were too
bright for my solid and serious virtues.

For they had discovered in me solid and serious virtues. That
might have been because I had once dropped the remark that I
preferred General Braddock to General Washington. For the
Hurlbirds had backed the losing side in the War of Independence,
and had been seriously impoverished and quite efficiently
oppressed for that reason. The Misses Hurlbird could never forget
it.

Nevertheless they shuddered at the thought of a European career