A HAPPY-HEARTED child was Madeline Henry, for the glad sunshine ever
lay upon the threshold of her early home. Her father, a cheerful,
unselfish man, left the world and its business cares behind him when
he placed his hand upon the door of entrance to his household
treasures. Like other men, he had his anxieties, his hopes and
losses, his disappointments and troubles; but he wisely and humanely
strove to banish these from his thoughts, when he entered the
home-sanctuary, lest his presence should bring a shadow instead of
sunshine.

Madeline was just twenty years of age, when, as the wife of Edward
Leslie, she left this warm down-covered nest, and was borne to a new
and more elegant home.

Mr. Leslie was her senior by eight or nine years. He began his
business life at the age of twenty-two, as partner in a well
established mercantile house, and, as he was able to place ten
thousand dollars in the concern, his position, in the matter of
profits, was good from the beginning. Yet, for all this,
notwithstanding more than one loving-hearted girl, in whose eyes he
might have found favor, crossed his path, he resolutely turned his
thoughts away, lest the fascination should be too strong for him. He
resolved not to marry until he felt able to maintain a certain style
of living.

Thus were the heart's impulses checked; thus were the first tender
leaves of affection frozen in the cold breath of mere calculation.