“So do I. But it can’t be helped. She’s somewhat proud and haughty. Her sister Eunice is the flower of that flock. I don’t know a sweeter young girl.”
“She ought to have been married long ago.”
“And so she would, I am told, if her father had not interfered.”
“To whom?”
“To some young man, who, not being rich enough, was not considered good enough.”
“Then there is some chance for her now.”
“I don’t know. Perhaps the young man loved her father’s money quite as well as he loved her, and will now change his mind altogether. Ah me! It is wonderful how a man’s views and opinions will alter under the force of a money-argument.”
Thus the gossip ran.
As for old Mr. Pascal, to whom allusion was made in this conversation, he had his eyes about him, and his ears open to all that concerned Mr. Townsend. Long before the failure of the United States Bank, he had seen enough to make him dissatisfied with the proposed alliance, and, as has been shown, endeavored to induce his son to give up all idea of marrying Eveline. Immediately upon the failure of the Bank, in the stock of which he had some twenty or thirty thousand dollars invested, he said to his son:
“Henry, nearly every dollar of Mr. Townsend’s property is locked up in the stock of this institution.”