"It was a mighty near thing, Teresa," I said.

"I guess it was--for me!" she said.

"I meant myself, sweetheart," I said.

"For both of us then," she said, in a voice between laughter and
tears, and impulsively put her arms round my neck.





THE AWAKENING OF GEORGE RAYMOND

I


George Raymond's father had been a rich man, rich in those days
before the word millionaire had been invented, and when a modest
hundred thousand, lent out at an interest varying from ten to
fifteen per cent, brought in an income that placed its possessor
on the lower steps of affluence. He was the banker of a small New
Jersey town, a man of portentous respectability, who proffered two
fingers to his poorer clients and spoke about the weather as
though it belonged to him. When the school-children read of
Croesus in their mythology, it was Jacob Raymond they saw in their
mind's eye; such expressions as "rich beyond the dreams of
avarice" suggested him as inevitably as pumpkin did pie; they
wondered doubtfully about him in church when that unfortunate