CHAPTER I.

TORONTO A FAIR MATRON.

Two gentlemen friends saunter arm in arm up and down the deck of the palace steamer _Chicora_ as she enters our beautiful Lake Ontario from the picturesque Niagara River, on a perfect day in delightful September, when the blue canopy of the heavens seems so far away, one wonders that the mirrored surface of the lake can reflect its color.

"Do you know, Buckingham, you puzzle me; you were evidently happier in our little circle at the Hoffman House than in billiard, smoking, or reading-rooms, and just now in the saloon you seemed so content with Miss Crew, my wife and our boy, that I again wonder a man with these tastes, and who has made his little pile, does not marry," said Mr. Dale, in flute-like tones, distinctly English in accent. "I really think, my dear fellow, you would be happier in big New York city with some one in it to make a home for you."

"I am quite sure your words are kindly meant, Dale, but look at me," he says tranquilly, "I am not dwarfed by care, being six feet in my stockings, I have no worrying lines written on my forehead, and between you and I, I am fifty; to be sure I am bald and grey, but that is New York life, a bachelor life, then, has not served me ill; there is a woman at Toronto I should like as my wife, but until I can give her the few luxuries I now deem necessities, I shall remain as I am."

"I regret your decision, Buckingham, it is a rock many men split on, this waiting for wealth and missing wifely companionship."

"Perhaps you are right; but I should not care to risk it," he says, calmly.

"And you a speculator!" his friend said, smiling. At this they drifted into business and some joint investments in Canadian mineral locations, when Dale said:

"You must excuse me now, Buckingham, I promised my wife to go and read her a letter descriptive of Toronto, as we, you know, have not been there."

"Who is the writer, if I may know?"

"Our mutual friend at Toronto, Mrs. Gower."

"Oh, I am with you then," he said, with unusual eagerness, a fact noted by his friend.

Entering the saloon, Mrs. Dale, a pretty little woman, fashionably dressed, with Irish blue eyes and raven hair, said, lifting her head:

"Excuse my recumbent position, but I feel as if my head wasn't level, if I try to sit up; ditto, Miss Crew."

"Where is Garfield, Ella?"

"Over there with those boys; now read away, hubby, it will do my head good."

"Very well, let me see where the description commences (the personal