After the business matters of the estate were all in order, he went away, intending, I believe, to stay a year or two.

But he came back before many months were over, and settled down into the routine of business life, which now seemed to have become necessary to him.
Travel was only a weariness to him in his state of mind; and work, and city-life, seemed the panacea.

He did not live with Sophie, but took apartments, which he furnished plainly; and seemed settling down, according to his brother, into much of the sort of life that Uncle Leonard had led so many years in Varick-street.
Sophie still went to R----, and I often heard of the pleasant parties there in summer.

But Richard seldom went, and seemed to have lost his interest in the place, though I have no doubt he spent more money on it than before.

I heard of many improvements every year.
And Richard was now a man of wealth, so much so that people talked about him; and the newspapers said, in talking about real-estate, or investments, or institutions of charity--"When such men as Richard Vandermarck allow their names to appear, we may be sure," etc., etc.