r truer, fonder, and
more sensible wife than I have, or a happier home cannot be found even
though you search the wide world over. It was in Philadelphia that I
wooed and won her, and I was by no means the only contestant that was in
the field for her heart and hand. There were others, and one in
particular that was far better looking and much more of a lady's man
than myself, but when he found that I had a pull at the weights he
retired, though not without a struggle, and left me in undisputed
possession of the field.

Just why I happened to be the successful suitor is now, and always has
been, to me a mystery. I have asked Mrs. Anson to explain, but somehow I
can get very little satisfaction. I was by no means a model man in the
early days of my courtship, as my experiences detailed elsewhere go to
prove, but I was an honest and faithful wooer, as my wife can testify,
and that perhaps had as much to do with the successful termination of my
suit as anything. I had been used to having everything that I wanted
from my babyhood up, and after I had once made up my mind that I wanted
my wife, which I did very early in our acquaintance, I laid siege to her
heart with all the artifices that I could command.

I am sometimes inclined to believe that I fell in love with her, at
least part way, the very first time that I met her, else why should I
remember her so vividly?

Her name was Virginia M. Fiegal, and she was one of a family of two, and
the only daughter, her father being John Fiegal, a hotel and restaurant
man in the Quaker City.

The first time that I ever saw her was at a ball given by the National
Guards in Philadelphia, and though she was then but a fair-haired,
blue-eyed girl of some twelve or thirteen summers, and still in short
dresses, she attracted my attention. Just how she was dressed on that
occasion I could not tell you to save my life, nor do I think I could
have done so an hour after the ball was over, but for all that the
memory of her sweet face and girlish ways lingered with me long after
the strains of music had died away and the ball-room was given over to
the flitting shadows.

Some months, or weeks, perhaps, I have really forgotten which, drifted
by before I saw her again, and then it was at a club ball, and this time
I paid her considerable attention, in fact, I liked her better than any
girl that I had yet met and was not afraid to show it, although I could
not then muster up the necessary c