her chamber, and the Widow Crane confessed her disappointment to the
confiding ear of her bosom friend, Mrs. Merrill. Not many years later a
man named Grant was to be in Springfield, with a carpet bag, despised as
a vagabond. A very homely man named Lincoln went to Cincinnati to try a
case before the Supreme Court, and was snubbed by a man named Stanton.

When we meet the truly great, several things may happen. In the first
place, we begin to believe in their luck, or fate, or whatever we choose
to call it, and to curse our own. We begin to respect ourselves the more,
and to realize that they are merely clay like us, that we are great men
without Opportunity. Sometimes, if we live long enough near the Great, we
begin to have misgivings. Then there is hope for us.

Mrs. Brice, with her simple black gowns, quiet manner, and serene face,
with her interest in others and none in herself, had a wonderful effect
upon the boarders. They were nearly all prepared to be humble. They grew
arrogant and pretentious. They asked Mrs. Brice if she knew this and that
person of consequence in Boston, with whom they claimed relationship or
intimacy. Her answers were amiable and self-contained.

But what shall we say of Stephen Brice? Let us confess at once that it is
he who is the hero of this story, and not Eliphalet Hopper. It would be
so easy to paint Stephen in shining colors, and to make him a first-class
prig (the horror of all novelists), that we must begin with the
drawbacks. First and worst, it must be confessed that Stephen had at that
time what has been called "the Boston manner." This was not Stephen's
fault, but Boston's. Young Mr. Brice possessed that wonderful power of
expressing distance in other terms besides ells and furlongs,--and yet
he was simple enough with it all.