CHAPTER VI.
EXPLANATION.
Six years prior to the commencement of our story New Haven boasted not a better or wealthier citizen than Harcourt Linwood, of whose subsequent failure and death we have heard from Uncle Israel.

The great beauty of his only child, Ada, then a girl of nearly thirteen, was the subject of frequent comment among the circle in which he moved.

No pains were spared with her education, and many were the conjectures as to what she would be when time had matured her mind and beauty.
Hugh St.Leon, of New Orleans, then nineteen years of age, and a student at Yale, had frequently met Ada at the house of his sister, Mrs.Durant, whose eldest daughter, Jenny, was about her own age.

The uncommon beauty of the child greatly interested the young Southerner and once, in speaking of his future prospects to his sister, he playfully remarked, "Suppose I wait for Ada Linwood." "You cannot do better," was the reply, and the conversation terminated.
The next evening there was to be a child's party at the house of Mrs.
Durant, and as Hugh was leaving the house Jenny bounded after him, saying, "Oh, Uncle Hugh, you'll come to-morrow night, won't you?
No matter if you are a grown-up man, in the junior class, trying to raise some whiskers! You will be a sort of restraint, and keep us from getting too rude.

Besides, we are going to have tableaux, and I want you to act the part of bridegroom in one of the scenes." "Who is to be the bride ?" asked Hugh.
"Ada Linwood.