voyage was a mere incident--in many
cases a yearly one. "A crossing" in those days was an event. It was
planned seriously, long thought of, discussed and re-discussed, with and
among the various members of the family to which the voyager belonged.
A certain boldness, bordering on recklessness, was almost to be
presupposed in the individual who, turning his back upon New York,
Philadelphia, Boston, and like cities, turned his face towards "Europe."
In those days when the Shuttle wove at leisure, a man did not lightly
run over to London, or Paris, or Berlin, he gravely went to "Europe."

The journey being likely to be made once in a lifetime, the traveller's
intention was to see as much as possible, to visit as many cities
cathedrals, ruins, galleries, as his time and purse would allow. People
who could speak with any degree of familiarity of Hyde Park, the Champs
Elysees, the Pincio, had gained a certain dignity. The ability to touch
with an intimate bearing upon such localities was a raison de plus for
being asked out to tea or to dinner. To possess photographs and relics
was to be of interest, to have seen European celebrities even at a
distance, to have wandered about the outside of poets' gardens and
philosophers' houses, was to be entitled to respect. The period was a
far cry from the time when the Shuttle, having shot to and fro, faster
and faster, week by week, month by month, weaving new threads into its
web each year, has woven warp and woof until they bind far shore to
shore.

It was in comparatively early days that the first thread we follow
was woven into the web. Many such have been woven since and have
added greater strength than any others, twining the cord of sex and
home-building and race-founding. But this was a slight and weak
one, being only the thread of the life of one of Reuben Vanderpoel's
daughters--the pretty little simple one whose name was Rosalie.

They were--the Vanderpoels--of the Americans whose fortunes were a
portion of the history of their country. The building of these fortunes
had been a part of, or had created epochs and crises. Their millions
could scarcely be regarded as private property. Newspapers bandied them
about, so to speak, employing them as factors in argument, using them
as figures of speech, incorporating them into methods of calculation.
Literature touched upon them, moral systems considered them, stories for
the young treated them gravely as illustrative.

The firs