But the effect of it all was,
that Laura was considered to be very wealthy and likely to be vastly more
so in a little while. Consequently she was much courted and as much
envied: Her wealth attracted many suitors. Perhaps they came to worship
her riches, but they remained to worship her. Some of the noblest men of
the time succumbed to her fascinations. She frowned upon no lover when
he made his first advances, but by and by when she was hopelessly
enthralled, he learned from her own lips that she had formed a resolution
never to marry. Then he would go away hating and cursing the whole sex,
and she would calmly add his scalp to her string, while she mused upon
the bitter day that Col. Selby trampled her love and her pride in the
dust. In time it came to be said that her way was paved with broken
hearts.
Poor Washington gradually woke up to the fact that he too was an
intellectual marvel as well as his gifted sister. He could not conceive
how it had come about (it did not occur to him that the gossip about his
family's great wealth had any thing to do with it). He could not account
for it by any process of reasoning, and was simply obliged to accept the
fact and give up trying to solve the riddle.
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