She did nothing of the sort.

The first shock was so great that Mrs. Abner Reed cried in the privacy of her chamber, and the Widow Crane confessed her disappointment to the confiding ear of her bosom friend, Mrs. Merrill.  Not many years later a man named Grant was to be in Springfield, with a carpet bag, despised as a vagabond.  A very homely man named Lincoln went to Cincinnati to try a case before the Supreme Court, and was snubbed by a man named Stanton.

When we meet the truly great, several things may happen.  In the first place, we begin to believe in their luck, or fate, or whatever we choose to call it, and to curse our own.  We begin to respect ourselves the more, and to realize that they are merely clay like us, that we are great men without Opportunity.  Sometimes, if we live long enough near the Great, we begin to have misgivings.  Then there is hope for us.

Mrs. Brice, with her simple black gowns, quiet manner, and serene face, with her interest in others and none in herself, had a wonderful effect upon the boarders.  They were nearly all prepared to be humble.  They grew arrogant and pretentious.  They asked Mrs. Brice if she knew this and that person of consequence in Boston, with whom they claimed relationship or intimacy.  Her answers were amiable and self-contained.

But what shall we say of Stephen Brice?  Let us confess at once that it is he who is the hero of this story, and not Eliphalet Hopper.  It would be so easy to paint Stephen in shining colors, and to make him a first-class prig (the horror of all novelists), that we must begin with the drawbacks.  First and worst, it must be confessed that Stephen had at that time what has been called “the Boston manner.”  This was not Stephen’s fault, but Boston’s.  Young Mr. Brice possessed that wonderful power of expressing distance in other terms besides ells and furlongs,—­and yet he was simple enough with it all.

Many a furtive stare he drew from the table that evening.  There were one or two of discernment present, and they noted that his were the generous features of a marked man,—­if he chose to become marked.  He inherited his mother’s look; hers was the face of a strong woman, wide of sympathy, broad of experience, showing peace of mind amid troubles—­the touch of femininity was there to soften it.

Her son had the air of the college-bred.  In these surroundings he escaped arrogance by the wonderful kindliness of his eye, which lighted when his mother spoke to him.  But he was not at home at Miss Crane’s table, and he made no attempt to appear at his ease.

This was an unexpected pleasure for Mr. Eliphalet Hopper.  Let it not be thought that he was the only one at that table to indulge in a little secret rejoicing.  But it was a peculiar satisfaction to him to reflect that these people, who had held up their heads for so many generations, were humbled at last.  To be humbled meant, in Mr. Hopper’s philosophy, to lose one’s money.  It was thus he gauged the importance of his acquaintances; it was thus he hoped some day to be gauged.  And he trusted and believed that the time would come when he could give his fillip to the upper rim of fortune’s wheel, and send it spinning downward.