were designed to effect. She was satisfied
that all was as she could wish--that both Fenwick and Mary were
interested in each other; and she knew enough of the human heart,
and of her own power over it, when exercised in a certain way, to
know that it would not be long before they were much more deeply
interested.

Like all the rest of Mrs. Martindale's selections of parties for
matrimony, the present was a very injudicious one. Mary was only
seventeen--too young, by three or four years, to be able properly to
judge of character; and Fenwick was by no means a suitable man for
her husband. He was himself only about twenty-one, with a character
not yet fully decided, though the different constituents of his mind
were just ready to take their various positions, and fixed and
distinctive forms. Unfortunately, these mental and moral relations
were not truly balanced; there was an evident bias of selfishness
and evil over generous and true principles. As Mrs. Martindale was
no profound judge of character, she could not, of course, make a
true discrimination of Fenwick's moral fitness for the husband of
Mary Lester. Indeed, she never attempted to analyze character, nor
had she an idea of any thing beneath the surface. Personal
appearance, an affable exterior, and a little flattery of herself,
were the three things which, in her estimation, went to make up a
perfect character--were enough to constitute the beau ideal of a
husband for any one.

Mary's father was a merchant of considerable wealth and standing in
society, and possessing high-toned feelings and principles. Mary was
his oldest child. He loved her tenderly, and, moreover, felt all a
parent's pride in one so young, so lovely, and so innocent.

Fenwick had, until within a few months, been a clerk in a retail
dry-goods store, at a very small salary. A calculating, but not too
honest a wholesale dealer in the same line, desirous of getting rid
of a large stock of unsaleable goods, proposed to the young man to
set him up in business--a proposition which was instantly accepted.
The credit thus furnished to Fenwick was an inducement for others to
sell to him; and so, without a single dollar of capital, he obtained
a store full of goods. The scheme of the individual who had thus
induced him to venture upon a troubled and uncertain sea, was to get
paid fair prices for his own depreciated goods out of Fenwick's
first sales, and then gradually to withdraw his support, comp