“It is the new carriage from North End Hotel!  And he and his groomsmen had engaged it.  That’s how I know!  Here comes the ferryboat!  Now for it!”

The boat touched the banks, and as many as could find room crowded into it, and were speedily rowed across the river and landed on the other side, where they found a few of the lawn party there before them.

“There is Mr. Clarence Rockharrt coming toward us!” said Mrs. Bounce, as the party walked up from the landing, and a medium-sized, plump, fair man of middle age, with a round, fresh face, a smiling countenance, blue eyes and light hair, and in “a wedding garment” of the day, came down to meet them, and shook hands with all, warmly welcoming them in the name of his father.  Then he led them up to the lawn and gave them chairs among the unoccupied seats at the various tables.

“If you please, Mr. Clarence, is the groom in good health and sperrits?” meaningly inquired Mrs. Bounce.

“Mr. Rothsay is in excellent health and spirits, thank you,” replied the gentleman, looking a little surprised at the question:  an then moving off quickly to receive some new arrivals.

The guests for the lawn party were constantly arriving, and the ferryboat was kept busy plying from the shore to shore.

It is time now to introduce our readers to the house of Rockharrt.

Old Aaron Rockharrt, the head of that house, was at this time seventy-five years of age and a wonder of health and strength.  He was called the “Iron King,” no less from his great hardihood of body and mind than from his vast wealth in mines and foundries.  In size he was almost a giant, with a large head covered by closely-curling, steel-gray hair.  His character may be summed up in a very few words: 

Aaron Rockharrt was an incarnation of monstrous selfishness.

His manners to all, but especially to his dependants, were arrogant, egotistical and overbearing.  He was utterly destitute of sympathy or compassion.  There was no room for either in a soul so full of self.  In his opinion there was no one on earth, neither king nor Kaiser, saint nor hero, so important to the universe as Aaron Rockharrt, head of Rockharrt & Sons.

Yet Aaron Rockharrt had two redeeming points.  He was strictly truthful in word and honest in deed.

His wife was near his own age, a quiet, gentle, little old lady, small and slim, with white hair half hidden by a lace cap.  If she ever had any individuality, it had been quite crushed out by the hard heel of her husband’s iron will.  Their eldest son and second partner in the firm was Fabian Rockharrt, a fine animal of fifty years old, though scarcely looking forty.  He had inherited all his father’s great strength of body and of mind, with more than his father’s business talent; but he had not inherited the truth and honesty of his father.

Yet there is no one wholly evil, and Fabian Rockharrt’s one redeeming quality was a certain good nature or benevolence which is more the result of temperament than of principle.  This quality rendered his manner so kind and considerate to all his employes that he was the most popular member of his family.