John, stepping backward from his door one day, saying a last word to his wife, who stood on the threshold, pushed against this neighbor as he was moving with somewhat cumbersome haste to catch the stage, turned quickly, and raised his hat.
“Pardon!”
The other uncovered his bald head and circlet of white, silken locks, and hurried on to the conveyance.
“President of one of the banks down-town,” whispered John.
That is the nearest they ever came to being acquainted. And even this accident might not have occurred had not the man of snowy locks been glancing at Mary as he passed instead of at his omnibus.
As he sat at home that evening he remarked:—
“Very pretty little woman that, my dear, that lives in the little house at the corner; who is she?”
The lady responded, without lifting her eyes from the newspaper in which she was interested; she did not know. The husband mused and twirled his penknife between a finger and thumb.
“They seem to be starting at the bottom,” he observed.
“Yes?”