“You forget the advantages she would enjoy.  You are not wont to allow your feelings to interfere with the interests of those you love.  I am sure you will not in this case.  Think the matter over, and talk with your wife about it.  She has an undoubted right to be consulted.  I must go and prepare some letters for the evening mail.”  So saying, he arose and went to his room.

The two brothers, Richard and Henry Clifton, had been separated for many years.  When Richard was seventeen years of age, his father indulged him in his earnest desire to become a merchant.  At a great pecuniary sacrifice, he was placed in the employment of an intelligent and prosperous merchant in New York; and when, at the age of twenty-one, he was admitted as a member of the firm, his patrimony was given him to be invested in the concern.

To his remaining son, Henry, Mr. Clifton offered a collegiate education.  This offer was declined by Henry, not through lack of a desire for knowledge, but in consequence of a too humble estimate of his mental powers.  When he became of age, a deed of the homestead was given him.  Not long afterwards, his father was carried to his long home.

The business of the firm to which Richard Clifton belonged rendered it necessary for him to repair to a foreign city, where he resided for fifteen years.  He was now on his first visit to his native place, subsequent to his return to the commercial emporium.

Susan, the only child of Henry and Mary Clifton, was just sixteen years of age.  Her light form, transparent countenance, brilliant eye, and graceful movements, were not in keeping with the theory that rusticity must be the necessary result of living in a farmhouse, especially when the labors thereof are not performed by hireling hands.

From the first day of his visit, the heart of the merchant warmed towards the child of his only brother.  Her delicate and affectionate attentions increased the interest he felt in her.  That interest was not at all lessened by a distinct perception of the fact that she was fitted to adorn the magnificent parlors of his city residence.  It was, therefore, his fixed purpose to take her with him on his return.  Some objections, he doubted not, would be raised by his sober brother; but he placed his reliance for success upon the mother’s influence.  No mother, he was sure, could reject so brilliant an offer for her darling child.

The time spent by the merchant in writing letters, affecting operations in the four quarters of the globe, was passed by the farmer in thoughtful silence, though in the presence of his wife and daughter.  He withdrew as he heard his brother coming from his room.

“Uncle,” said Susan, “do you wish to have those letters taken to the post-office?”

“Yes, dear.”

“Let me take them for you.”

She received the letters from his willing hand, and left him alone with her mother.