The Pennsylvania property was sold at last; and if "stock good" was true, the dispatch informed him that he was, if not a rich man for modern days, still, as David would have put it, "wuth consid'able." No man, I take it, is very likely to receive such a piece of news without satisfaction; but if our friend's first sensation was one of gratification, the thought which followed had a drop of bitterness in it.

"If I could only have had it before!" he said to himself; and indeed many of the disappointments of life, if not the greater part, come because events are unpunctual.

They have a way of arriving sometimes too early, or worse, too late.
Another circumstance detracted from his satisfaction: a note he expected did not appear among the other communications waiting him at the bankers, and his mind was occupied for the while with various conjectures as to the reason, none of which was satisfactory.

Perhaps she had changed her mind.

Perhaps--a score of things! Well, there was nothing for it but to be as patient as possible and await events.