As it chanced, a good business opportunity had called Kate's husband to a Western town very soon after Billy herself had gone to Hampden Falls; and since the family's removal to the West, Mrs.Hartwell had not once returned to Boston.
It was in April, three years since Billy's first appearance in the Beacon Street house, that Bertram met his friend, Hugh Calderwell, on the street one afternoon, and brought him home to dinner.
Hugh Calderwell was a youth who, Bertram said, had been born with a whole dozen silver spoons in his mouth.

And, indeed, it would seem so, if present prosperity were any indication.

He was a good-looking young fellow with a frank manliness that appealed to men, and a deferential chivalry that appealed to women; a combination that brought him many friends--and some enemies.

With plenty of money to indulge a passion for traveling, young Calderwell had spent the most of his time since graduation in daring trips into the heart of almost impenetrable forests, or to the top of almost inaccessible mountains, with an occasional more ordinary trip to give variety.

He had now come to the point, however, where he was determined to "settle down to something that meant something," he told the Henshaws, as the four men smoked in Bertram's den after dinner.
"Yes, sir, I have," he iterated.