As the heiress of immense wealth, her hand was eagerly sought in the aristocratic circle around her; but thus far she had resisted all these attacks upon her heart, and upon her prospective riches.  In the crowd of suitors who gathered around her was Anthony Maxwell.  In the item of wealth his fortune was comparatively small; and in that of a noble character, smaller still.  Emily could have forgiven him the want of the former, but the latter was imperatively demanded.  At the young lawyer’s return from the North, and on his first appearance at the bar, Emily had regarded him with more than ordinary attention.  But, after the death of his father, the reports which reached her ears of his dissolute habits and inclinations caused her to regard him with distrust.  His wit, accomplishments and native suavity, had procured him admission into the circle of her more favored friends.  But the report of his vices had as promptly produced his expulsion.

The return of the army from Mexico brought with it the young officer whom we have before mentioned.  The father of this young man had been a companion-in-arms of Colonel Dumont, and a strong friendship had grown up between the veterans.  The tie was severed only by the death of the former, after a life of mercantile misfortunes, and finally of utter ruin.  At the period of the father’s insolvency and death, Henry Carroll, the son, was a cadet at West Point, and was about abandoning his chosen profession, for the want of means, when Colonel Dumont wrote him an affectionate letter, offering all that he required to complete his studies.  This offer, coming from one who had been a heavy loser by his father’s bankruptcy, was highly appreciated, and the young student had allowed no false delicacy to prevent his acceptance of the generous proposal, though with a stipulation to repay all sums, with interest.  Colonel Dumont, in his regular summer tour to the North, never failed to visit his young friend, whose noble bearing and lofty principle entirely won his heart, and he charged himself with a father’s duty towards him.  A regular correspondence was kept up between the self-constituted guardian and his protege; and the more the former read the heart of the young man, the more did he rejoice that he had befriended him.  He read with mingled pride and affection the repeated instances of his daring courage and matchless skill which found their way into the newspapers; while the record of his humanity to a fallen foe contributed to swell the tide of the old gentleman’s affection.

On his return from Mexico, Henry’s first care was to see his devoted friend and guardian, and he accepted his pressing invitation to spend a month at Bellevue.