that Hiram, after finishing his education with Signor Alberto, attempted to continue his acquaintance with his partner in the waltz.  Once during the course he did ask the young lady where she lived, and intimated that he would be pleased to call and see her; but the observation was received with such evident signs of dissatisfaction, that he never renewed the subject, and it is doubtful if he ever explained to himself satisfactorily his failure to get in the good graces of such a handsome girl and so perfect a waltzer.

CHAPTER X.

The Rev. Augustus Myrtle, rector of St. Jude’s, was one of those circumstances of nature which are only to be encountered in metropolitan life.  This seems a paradox.  I will explain.  All his qualities were born with him, not acquired, and those qualities could only shine in the aristocratic and fashionable circles of a large city.  As animals by instinct avoid whatever is noxious and hurtful, so Augustus Myrtle from his infancy by instinct avoided all poor people and all persons not in the ‘very first society.’

Children are naturally democrats; school is a great leveller.  Augustus Myrtle recognized no such propositions.  While a boy at the academy, while a youth in college, he sought the intimacy of boys and youths of rich persons of ton.  It was not enough that a young fellow was well bred and had a good social position—­he must be rich.  It was not enough that he was rich—­he must have position.

I do not think that Augustus Myrtle sat down carefully to calculate all this.  So I say it was instinctive—­born with him.  A person who frequents only the society of the well bred and the wealthy must, to a degree at least, possess refined and elegant and expensive tastes, and it was so in the case of Myrtle.  His tastes were refined and elegant and expensive.

His parents were themselves people of respectability, but very poor.  His mother used to say that her son’s decided predilections were in consequence of her unfortunate state of mind the season Augustus was born, when poverty pinched the family sharply.  Mr. Myrtle was a man of collegiate education, with an excellent mind, but totally unfitted for active life.  The result was, after marrying a poor girl, who was, however, of the ‘aristocracy,’ he became, through the influence of her friends, the librarian of the principal library in a neighboring city, with a fair salary, on which, with occasional sums received for literary productions, he managed to bring up and support his small family.  At times, when some unexpected expenses had to be incurred, as I have hinted, poverty seemed to poor Mrs. Myrtle a very great hardship, and such was their situation the year Augustus was born.

He was the only son, and the hope of the parents centred on him.  It was settled that he should be sent to the best schools and to a first-class college.  He had, perhaps, rather more than ordinary ability, the power to display to the best advantage the talents and acquirements he did possess, together with attractive manners, which, though reserved, were pleasing.  He was slight, gracefully formed, and a little above the ordinary height.  He had a dark complexion, a face thin and colorless, with fine, large, black eyes.