A month later, and cards of invitation were received from Mr. and Mrs. Spencer Birtwell.  This was to be among the notable entertainments of the season.  Mr. Birtwell was a wealthy banker who, like other men, had his weaknesses, one of which was a love of notoriety and display.  He had a showy house and attractive equipages, and managed to get his name frequently chronicled in the newspapers, now as the leader in some public enterprise or charity, now as the possessor of some rare work of art, and now as the princely capitalists whose ability and sagacity had lifted him from obscurity to the proud position he occupied.  He built himself a palace for a residence, and when it was completed and furnished issued tickets of admission, that the public might see in what splendor he was going to live.  Of course the newspapers described everything with a minuteness of detail and a freedom of remark that made some modest and sensitive people fancy that Mr. Birtwell must be exceedingly annoyed.  But he experienced no such feeling.  Praise of any kind was pleasant to his ears; you could not give him too much, nor was he over-nice as to the quality.  He lived in the eyes of his fellow-citizens, and in all his walk and conversation, he looked to their good opinion.

Such was Mr. Birtwell, at whose house a grand entertainment was to be given.  Among the large number of invited guests were included Mr. and Mrs. Ridley.  But it so happened that Mrs. Ridley could not go.  A few days before the evening on which this party was to be given a new-born babe had been laid on her bosom.

“Good-night, dear, and God bless you!” Mr. Ridley had said, in a voice that was very tender, as he stooped over and kissed his wife.  No wonder that all the light went out of her face the moment she was alone, nor that a shadow fell quickly over it, nor that from beneath the fringes of her shut eyelids tears crept slowly and rested upon her cheeks.  If her husband had left her for the battlefield, she could not have felt a more dreadful impression of danger, nor have been oppressed by a more terrible fear for his safety.  No wonder that her nurse, coming into the chamber a few minutes after Mr. Ridley went out, found her in a nervous chill.

The spacious and elegant drawing-rooms of Mr. and Mrs. Birtwell were crowded with the elite of the city, and the heart of the former swelled with pride as he received his guests and thought of their social, professional or political distinction, the lustre of which he felt to be, for the time, reflected upon himself.  It was good to be in such company, and to feel that he was equal with the best.  He had not always been the peer of such men.  There had been an era of obscurity out of which he had slowly emerged, and therefore he had the larger pride and self-satisfaction in the position he now held.