She also died, and left a daughter, and this child I again called Lydia, in memory of my first wife, who was the only woman I ever truly loved.

I placed little Lydia in a convent for education, and devoted my second wife's money to that purpose; then I started out for the fifth or sixth time to make my fortune.

Needless to say, I did not make it.
"I pass over a long period of distress and prosperity, hopes and fears.
One day I was rich, the next poor; and Fate--or whatever malignant deity looked after my poor affairs--knocked me about most cruelly, tossed me up, threw me down, and at the end of a score of years left me comparatively prosperous, with an income, in English money, of L500 a year.

With this I returned to Washington to seek Lydia, and found her grown up into a beautiful and clever girl.

Her beauty gave me the idea that I might marry her well in Europe as an American heiress.