nounced in the newspapers of the day,
it caused a sensation, I assure you. Mr. Fabian Rockharrt, the eldest
son of the renowned millionaire, the confirmed bachelor, for whom "caps"
had been "set" for the last twenty-five years; who had flirted with
maidens who were now wives of elderly men and mothers of grown-up
daughters, and in some cases even grandmothers of growing boys and
girls--Mr. Fabian Rockharrt to be won at last by a little wood violet!
Preposterous!

The fourteenth of February, Saint Valentine's Day, the Birds' Wedding
Day, dawned in that Southern climate like a May day. The snow had
vanished weeks before; the ground was warm and moist; the grass was
springing; the trees were budding; the wood violets were opening their
sweet eyes in sheltered nooks of the forest.

I do not know in what mood Violet Wood arose on that momentous morning
of her life--probably in a very pleasant one. Her chaperon confided to
an intimate friend that the child was not in love; that she had never
been in love in her life, and did not even know what being in love
meant; but that she was rather fond of the fine fellow who adored her,
flattered her, petted her, promised her everything she wanted, and whose
enormous wealth constituted him a sort of magician who could command the
riches, the splendors, the luxuries, and all the delights of life! She
was full of rapturous anticipations of extravagant enjoyments.

Mr. Fabian Rockharrt, utterly unprincipled as he was, yet had the grace
to recognize the purity of the young being whom he was about to make his
wife. He was very kind hearted and good humored with every one; he
really loved this girl, as he had never loved any one in all his life;
and it was his pleasure to indulge her in every wish and whim--even to
suggest and create in her mind more wishes and more whims, such as she
never could have imagined, so that he might have the joy of gratifying
them.

Before starting to church that morning his father called him into the
library for a private interview, and lectured him as if he had been a
lad of twenty-one, who was about to contract marriage--lectured him on
the duties of a husband, of the master of a household and the head of a
family.

The arrival of Mr. Clarence from North End, and of Mr. Sylvan from West
Point by the same train, to be present at the wedding, interrupted the
bridegroom's reflections.

"It is now nine o'clock, boys. You have just time to get your breakfast