as dowry. Good thing for Holmes. 'Stonishin' how he's made his
way up. If money 's what he wants in this world, he's making a
long stride now to 't."

The young doctor lighted his cigar, asserting that--

"Ba George, some low people did get on, re-markably! Mary Herne,
now, was best catch in town."

"Do you think money is what he wants?" said a quiet little man,
sitting lazily on a barrel,--a clergyman, Vandyke; whom his
clerical brothers shook their heads when they named, but never
argued with, and bowed to with uncommon deference.

The wool-buyer hesitated with a puzzled look.

"No," he said, slowly; "Stephen Holmes is not miserly. I've
knowed him since a boy. To buy place, power, perhaps, eh? Yet
not that, neither," he added, hastily. "We think a sight of him
out our way, (self-made, you see,) and would have had him the
best office in the State before this, only he was so cursedly
indifferent."

"Indifferent, yes. No man cares much for stepping-stones in
themselves," said Vandyke, half to himself.

"Great fault of American society, especially in the West," said
the young aristocrat. "Stepping-stones lie low, as my reverend
friend suggests; impudence ascends; merit and refinement scorn
such dirty paths,"--with a mournful remembrance of the last dime