roof, he declined
every invitation for himself, avoiding even, with equal strictness, all
evening amusements of whatever kind, which would detain him in the city
after ten at night. Perhaps this was to ensure no break in his rule of
life never to sleep out of his own bed. Though he was a man well over
fifty he had not spent, according to his own statement, but two nights
out of his own bed since his return from Europe in early boyhood, and
those were in obedience to a judicial summons which took him to Boston.

This was his main eccentricity, but he had another which is apparent
enough from what has already been said. He avoided women. If thrown in
with them during his short visits into town, he was invariably polite
and at times companionable, but he never sought them out, nor had
gossip, contrary to its usual habit, ever linked his name with one of
the sex.

Yet he was a man of more than ordinary attraction. His features were
fine and his figure impressive. He might have been the cynosure of all
eyes had he chosen to enter crowded drawing-rooms, or even to frequent
public assemblages, but having turned his back upon everything of the
kind in his youth, he had found it impossible to alter his habits with
advancing years; nor was he now expected to. The position he had taken
was respected. Leonard Van Broecklyn was no longer criticized.

Was there any explanation for this strangely self-centred life? Those
who knew him best seemed to think so. In the first place he had sprung
from an unfortunate stock. Events of unusual and tragic nature had
marked the family of both parents. Nor had his parents themselves
been exempt from this seeming fatality. Antagonistic in tastes and
temperament, they had dragged on an unhappy existence in the old home,
till both natures rebelled, and a separation ensued which not only
disunited their lives but sent them to opposite sides of the globe
never to return again, At least, that was the inference drawn from
the peculiar circumstances attending the event. On the morning of one
never-to-be-forgotten day, John Van Broecklyn, the grandfather of the
present representative of the family, found the following note from his
son lying on the library table:

"FATHER:

"Life in this house, or any house, with her is no longer endurable.
One of us must go. The mother should not be separated from her child.
Therefore it is I whom you will never see again. Forget me, but be
considerate of her and