He had scarcely twenty miles to ride thus, but that comforting remembrance did not cause the pleasant smile to deepen about the mobile mouth.

He was thinking of the lovely young girl who had written him a note to say that she expected him at the trysting place, without fail, at seven that evening, as she had something of the greatest importance to communicate to him.

“Of course my dear little girl will not keep the appointment in such a blizzard as this.  She could not have foreseen how the weather would be when she wrote the precious little note that is tucked away so carefully in my breast pocket; but, like a true knight, I must obey my little lady’s commands, no matter what they may be, despite storm or tempests—­ay, even though I rode through seas of blood!”

Half a score of times the engine became firmly wedged in snowdrifts in traversing as many miles.  There were loud exclamations of discomfiture on all sides, but the handsome young man never heard them.  He was still staring out of the window—­staring without seeing—­and the smile on his face had given place to an expression of deep wistfulness.

“Sometimes I wonder how I have dared to aspire to her love—­the beautiful, petted daughter of a millionaire, and I only an assistant cashier on a very humble salary—­ay, a salary so small that my whole year’s earnings is less than the pin money she spends each month.

“If she were but poor like myself, how quickly I would make her mine.  How can I, how dare I, ask her to share my lot?  Will her father be amused, or terribly angry at my presumption?

“This sort of thing must stop.  I cannot be meeting my darling clandestinely any longer.  My honor forbids, my manhood cries out against it.

“But, oh, God! how the thought terrifies me that from the moment they find out that we have met, and are lovers, they will try to part us—­tear my darling from me!”

They had met in a very ordinary manner, but to the infatuated young lover it seemed the most ideal, most romantic of meetings.  The pretty little heiress had gone to the office of Marsh & Co. to settle her monthly account.  The old cashier was out to lunch.  His assistant, Lester Armstrong, stepped forward and attended to the matter for the pretty young girl, surely the sweetest and daintiest that he had ever beheld.

That night he dreamed of the lovely, dimpled rosebud face, framed in a mass of golden curls; a pair of bewildering violet eyes, and a gay, musical voice like a chiming of silver bells, and lo! the mischief was done.  The next day the assistant cashier made the first mistake of his life over his accounts.  The old cashier, Mr. Conway, looked at him grimly from over the tops of his gold-rimmed glasses.

“I hope you have not taken to playing cards nights, Mr. Armstrong,” he said.  “They are dangerous; avoid them.  Wine is still worse, and above all, let me warn you against womankind.  They are a snare and a delusion.  Avoid them, one and all, as you would a pestilence.”