tear and wear of life--just a few lines of sadness on his clean shaved
face, but for all that, looking the jolly, good sort of fellow that
everyone acknowledged him to be, with a tender heart and a ready hand
for the unfortunate, always honest and upright, yet thoroughly practical
and business-like in all his undertakings. Henry Rayne was descended
from a good old English family, whose name he bore proudly and
honorably, and many an interesting anecdote he was wont to tell at his
dinner table of the "Stephens," "Edwards," and "Henrys," of the bygone
generations of "Raynes."

With his private life was connected a sad little secret. He had been a
young man in his day, and the charms of the weaker sex had not fallen
vainly on his susceptible soul, oh dear no! Henry Rayne had loved once,
earnestly and well, and had offered his proud name and comfortable
fortune to the object of his devotion, but though he, to day, was the
same hale hearty Henry Rayne of the past, the young bud he had cherished
so fondly, lay withered in the churchyard far away in old England. Death
had come between them, and in the grief that followed, Rayne outlived
his susceptibilities, preferring to dwell fondly on the memory of the
old tie, than to reopen his heart to any new appeal. But a day came when
Henry Rayne had to incline his ear again to the winning voice of a
woman, when his forced indifference had to give place to the old warmth
and the old enthusiasm, when the withering heart revived and bloomed
afresh under the tender influence of a woman's smile, a woman's care and
a woman's sympathy. Of the causes of this happy revival we will have to
deal in the course of our narrative. Let us return to the scene by the
fireside where Henry Rayne sits opening his letters.

Three or four dry-as-dust laconic productions, of no earthly interest to
anyone but the unromantic writers, one formal note soliciting a generous