Three men of vast wealth competed for the prize, and the lucky purchaser was the eminent banker, John T. Sterling. Two financiers, known the world over, grew purple with jealousy when they first discovered that it was to go into the Sterling collection. Their faces resembled the color of the wonderful blossoms on the hawthorn vase.
Robert Hooker wanted to add to his museum this precious gift of the old Chinese gods. At the various places where the vase had been exhibited, he had often been seen gazing covetously at it. When it was offered for sale, he knew it was useless to ask the price—which was utterly beyond him.
One day, Hooker read in the society columns of the Herald that Jasper Foster was going to take up his residence in Italy on account of the illness of his only daughter. He intended to sell his fine old house on 17th Street, and all the furniture that it contained.
Now Jasper Foster was celebrated for one thing only. His name was known to fame but for a single object. He was the owner of the mate of the celebrated purple hawthorn vase in the Appleton collection.
Foster was an extremely modest, unworldly, retiring gentleman. In the last fifteen years there had been many inquiries about the vase, and numerous offers to purchase it, but he had always declined to part with it. It had been the property of his father and his grandfather, who had bought it from a sea-captain about the year 1820.
But now Foster was in dire straits. His house was mortgaged, and his daughter was ill with a malady that required a milder climate than New York. It was on this account that he was going to take up his residence in sunny Italy.
As soon as Hooker read the brief paragraph in the newspaper, he hurried to the rather imposing house on lower 17th Street. With fear and trembling, he rang the old-fashioned bell-pull.
Yes, Mr. Foster was at home.
The maid showed Mr. Hooker into the first parlor. He heard voices in an adjoining room. Mr. Foster then had other visitors.
To pass away the time, he picked up a magazine but put it down instantly. He had heard the magic words "purple hawthorn." Some one else was before him. He would find out.