abas went to Philadelphia on business. He had
retired from active sea-going years before, but he retained an interest
in a certain line of coasting schooners. The Captain, as I said, went to
Philadelphia on business connected with these schooners and Ardelia
went with him. Hephzibah stayed at home, of course; she always stayed
at home, never expected to do anything else, although even then her
favorite reading were books of travel, and pictures of the Alps, and of
St. Peter's at Rome, and the Tower of London were tacked up about her
room. She, too, might have gone to Philadelphia, doubtless, if she had
asked, but she did not ask. Her father did not think of inviting her.
He loved his oldest daughter, although he did not worship her as he did
Ardelia, but it never occurred to him that she, too, might enjoy the
trip. Hephzy was always at home, she WAS home; so at home she remained.

In Philadelphia Ardelia met Strickland Morley.

I give that statement a line all by itself, for it is by far the most
important I have set down so far. The whole story of the Cahoons and the
Knowleses--that is, all of their story which is the foundation of this
history of mine--hinges on just that. If those two had not met I should
not be writing this to-day, I might not be writing at all; instead of
having become a Bayport "quahaug" I might have been the Lord knows what.

However, they did meet, at the home of a wealthy shipping merchant named
Osgood who was a lifelong friend of Captain Barnabas. This shipping
merchant had a daughter and that daughter was giving a party at her
father's home. Barnabas and Ardelia were invited. Strickland Morley was
invited also.

Morley, at that time--I saw a good deal of him afterward, when he was
at Bayport and when I was at the Cahoon house on holidays and
vacations--was a handsome, aristocratic young Englishman. He was
twenty-eight, but he looked younger. He was the second son in a
Leicestershire family which had once been wealthy and influential but
which had, in its later generations, gone to seed. He was educated, in
a general sort of way, was a good dancer, played the violin fairly well,
sang fairly well, had an attractive presence, and was one of the most
plausible and fascinating talkers I ever listened to. He had studied
medicine--studied it after a fashion, that is; he never applied himself
to anything--and was then, in '88, "ship's doctor" aboard a British
steamer, which ran between Philadelphi