Mrs. Sommerton had died when Phyllis was twelve years old, leaving the
little girl to be brought up in a boarding-school in Atlanta. The widowed
man did not marry again, and when his daughter came home, six months before
the opening of our story, it was natural that he should see nothing but
loveliness in the fair, bright, only child of his happy wedded life, now
ended forever.
The reader must have taken for granted that the person under discussion in
the conversation touched upon at the outset of this writing was a young
man; but Tom Bannister stood for more than the sum of the average young
man's values. He was what in our republic is recognized as a promising
fellow, bright, magnetic, shifty, well forward in the neologies of society,
business, and politics, a born leader in a small way, and as ambitious as
poverty and a brimming self-esteem could make him. From his humble
law-office window he had seen Phyllis pass along the street in the old
Sommerton carriage, and had fallen in love as promptly as possible with her
plump, lissome form and pretty face.
He sought her acquaintance, avoided with cleverness a number of annoying
barriers, assaulted her heart, and won it, all of which stood as mere play
when compared with climbing over the pride and prejudice of Colonel
Sommerton.
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