Albany, N. Y.
I still take it you are interested in the census of your family. Recent events in this city have altered the figures. Don't attempt to write a history of the tribe of Van Epps without consulting Sanford Jones.
“There!” said young Jones, “that ought to fetch him. He won't know whether I mean the birth of a baby or Mary's death. If he doesn't come to see her now, I will mark him off my list for good. I would as it stands, if it were not for Mary.”
“Won't father worry, dear?” asked Mary, when young Jones repeated the ambiguous message he had aimed at his up-the-State father-in-law.
“I expect him to shed apprehensive tears all the way to New York,” replied young Jones. “But don't fret, Mary; I am sure he will come; and a tear or two won't hurt him. They will help his eyes, even though they do his heart no good. I don't resent his treatment of me, but his neglect of you is not so easy to forgive.”
II
This was the story:
Back four years, Albany would have shown you young Jones opening his law office in that hamlet. Mary was “Mary Van Epps.” At that time seventeen years was all the family register allowed to her for age.
Her father, Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps, was one of the leading citizens of Albany. While not a millionaire, he was of sufficient wealth to dazzle the local eye, and he was always mentioned by the denizens of his native place as “rich.”
Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps had a weakness. He was slave to the pedigree habit. Never a day went by but he called somebody's attention to those celebrities who aforetime founded and set flowing the family of Van Epps; and he proposed at some hour in the future to write a history of that eminent house. With his wealth and his family pride to prompt him, it came easy one day for Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps to object with decision and vigour to a match between young Jones and his daughter Mary.