meet Mrs. Douglas van Tuiver, _née_ Castleman, and to be chosen for
her bosom friend; but that would only be because you do not know the
modern world. We have managed to get upon the consciences of the
rich, and they invite us to attend their tea-parties and disturb
their peace of mind. And then, too, I had a peculiar hold upon
Sylvia; when I met her I possessed the key to the great mystery of
her life. How that had come about is a story in itself, the thing I
have next to tell.

2. It happened that my arrival in New York from the far West
coincided with Sylvia's from the far South; and that both fell at a
time when there were no wars or earthquakes or football games to
compete for the front page of the newspapers. So everybody was
talking about the prospective wedding. The fact that the Southern
belle had caught the biggest prize among the city's young
millionaires was enough to establish precedence with the city's
subservient newspapers, which had proceeded to robe the grave and
punctilious figure of the bridegroom in the garments of King
Cophetua. The fact that the bride's father was the richest man in
his own section did not interfere with this--for how could
metropolitan editors be expected to have heard of the glories of
Castleman Hall, or to imagine that there existed a section of
America so self-absorbed that its local favourite would not feel
herself exalted in becoming Mrs. Douglas van Tuiver?

What the editors knew about Castleman Hall was that they wired for
pictures, and a man was sent from the nearest city to "snap" this
unknown beauty; whereupon her father chased the presumptuous
photographer and smashed his camera with a cane. So, of course, when
Sylvia stepped out of the train in New York, there was a whole