This was just one of the early love affairs, or puppy loves, that held his mind from time to time in the mixture of after events.  Patience Barlow was kissed by him in secret ways many times before he found another girl.  She and others of the street ran out to play in the snow of a winter’s night, or lingered after dusk before her own door when the days grew dark early.  It was so easy to catch and kiss her then, and to talk to her foolishly at parties.  Then came Dora Fitler, when he was sixteen years old and she was fourteen; and Marjorie Stafford, when he was seventeen and she was fifteen.  Dora Fitter was a brunette, and Marjorie Stafford was as fair as the morning, with bright-red cheeks, bluish-gray eyes, and flaxen hair, and as plump as a partridge.

It was at seventeen that he decided to leave school.  He had not graduated.  He had only finished the third year in high school; but he had had enough.  Ever since his thirteenth year his mind had been on finance; that is, in the form in which he saw it manifested in Third Street.  There had been odd things which he had been able to do to earn a little money now and then.  His Uncle Seneca had allowed him to act as assistant weigher at the sugar-docks in Southwark, where three-hundred-pound bags were weighed into the government bonded warehouses under the eyes of United States inspectors.  In certain emergencies he was called to assist his father, and was paid for it.  He even made an arrangement with Mr. Dalrymple to assist him on Saturdays; but when his father became cashier of his bank, receiving an income of four thousand dollars a year, shortly after Frank had reached his fifteenth year, it was self-evident that Frank could no longer continue in such lowly employment.

Just at this time his Uncle Seneca, again back in Philadelphia and stouter and more domineering than ever, said to him one day: 

“Now, Frank, if you’re ready for it, I think I know where there’s a good opening for you.  There won’t be any salary in it for the first year, but if you mind your p’s and q’s, they’ll probably give you something as a gift at the end of that time.  Do you know of Henry Waterman & Company down in Second Street?”

“I’ve seen their place.”

“Well, they tell me they might make a place for you as a bookkeeper.  They’re brokers in a way—­grain and commission men.  You say you want to get in that line.  When school’s out, you go down and see Mr. Waterman—­tell him I sent you, and he’ll make a place for you, I think.  Let me know how you come out.”

Uncle Seneca was married now, having, because of his wealth, attracted the attention of a poor but ambitious Philadelphia society matron; and because of this the general connections of the Cowperwoods were considered vastly improved.  Henry Cowperwood was planning to move with his family rather far out on North Front Street, which commanded at that time a beautiful view of the river and was witnessing the construction of some charming dwellings.  His four thousand dollars a year in these pre-Civil-War times was considerable.  He was making what he considered judicious and conservative investments and because of his cautious, conservative, clock-like conduct it was thought he might reasonably expect some day to be vice-president and possibly president, of his bank.