“No,” said the other, “he is a railroad president.”

“And why do you think he’s the king-bee; is he very rich?”

“He is worth about ten million dollars,” said Aunt Polly.

Helen gazed at her wildly.  “Ten million dollars!” she gasped.

“Yes,” said the other; “about that, probably a little more.  Mr. Roberts knows all about his affairs.”

Helen was staring into her aunt’s face.  “Tell me,” she asked, very nervously indeed.  “Tell me, honestly!”

“What?”

“Is that the man you are bringing me here to meet?”

“Yes, Helen,” said the other quietly.

The girl’s hands were clasped tightly together just then.  “Aunt Polly,” she asked, “what kind of a man is he?  I will not marry a bad man!”

“A bad man, child?  How ridiculous!  Do you suppose I would ask you to marry a bad man, if he owned all New York?  I want you to be happy.  Mr. Harrison is a man who has made his own fortune, and he is a man of tremendous energy.  Everyone is obliged to respect him.”

“But he must be old, Auntie.”

“He is very young, Helen, only about forty.”

“Dear me,” said the girl, “I could never marry a man as old as forty; and then, I’d have to go out West!”

“Mr. Harrison has come to New York to live,” was the other’s reply.  “He has just bought a really magnificent country seat about ten miles from here—­the old Everson place, if you remember it; and he is negotiating for a house near ours in the city.  My husband and I both agreed, Helen, that if you could make Mr. Harrison fall in love with you it would be all that we could desire.”

“That is not the real problem,” Helen said, gazing out of the carriage with a frightened look upon her face; “it is whether I can fall in love with him.  Aunt Polly, it is dreadful to me to think of marrying; I don’t want to marry!  I don’t care who the man is!”

“We’ll see about that later on,” said the other, smiling reassuringly, and at the same time putting her arm about the girl; “there is no hurry, my love, and no one has the least thought of asking you to do what you do not want to do.  But a chance like this does not come often to any girl, my dear.  Mr. Harrison is in every way a desirable man.”

“But he’s stupid, Aunt Polly, I know he’s stupid!  All self-made men are; they tell you about how they made themselves, and what wonderful things they hare made!”

“You must of course not expect to find Mr. Harrison as cultured as yourself, Helen,” was the reply; “his education has been that of the world, and not of books.  But nobody thinks less of a man for that in the world; the most one can ask is that he does not make pretenses.  And he is very far from stupid, I assure you, or he would not have been what he is.”

“I suppose not,” said Helen, weakly.

“And, besides,” observed Aunt Polly, laughing to cheer the girl up, “I assure you it doesn’t make any difference.  My husband makes no pretense to being a wit, or a musician, or anything like that; he’s just a plain, sensible man, but we get along as happily as you could wish.  We each of us go our own way, and understand each other perfectly.”