It seems that a week before he had the
impertinence to offer himself to her he received word that his plans
for a vast railroad station in one of the large Western cities had been
accepted. But for this untoward circumstance, my dear Josie would
still be the light of my house, and I should not be gnawing at my
mustache in the throes of misanthropy.
Jim is slight and not very tall, and he does not look especially
strong. They tell me that he has worked very hard, and that he has won
his way purely by his own energy and talent. He does not smoke, which
rather prejudiced me against him, in spite of the fact that I believe
we should all be the healthier if we did not use tobacco. This, as
Josephine would say, only shows what an inconsistent creature I am.
And I a philosopher, too! But I said at the outset that I was not a
real philosopher. Josie met James--I beg his pardon, Jim--at her
coming-out party, and it seems that he fell in love with her at first
sight. If, now, somebody had fallen in love at first sight with my
sister-in-law, Julia, how much more satisfactory it would have been all
round. But that is the way of the world; Julia was overlooked and my
girl taken, to my miserable discomfiture. Jim was one of the youths
without fathers and mothers whom you see at every large entertainment.
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