I was by no means a model man in the early days of my courtship, as my experiences detailed elsewhere go to prove, but I was an honest and faithful wooer, as my wife can testify, and that perhaps had as much to do with the successful termination of my suit as anything.

I had been used to having everything that I wanted from my babyhood up, and after I had once made up my mind that I wanted my wife, which I did very early in our acquaintance, I laid siege to her heart with all the artifices that I could command.
I am sometimes inclined to believe that I fell in love with her, at least part way, the very first time that I met her, else why should I remember her so vividly?
Her name was Virginia M.Fiegal, and she was one of a family of two, and the only daughter, her father being John Fiegal, a hotel and restaurant man in the Quaker City.
The first time that I ever saw her was at a ball given by the National Guards in Philadelphia, and though she was then but a fair-haired, blue-eyed girl of some twelve or thirteen summers, and still in short dresses, she attracted my attention.

Just how she was dressed on that occasion I could not tell you to save my life, nor do I think I could have done so an hour after the ball was over, but for all that the memory of her sweet face and girlish ways lingered with me long after the strains of music had died away and the ball-room was given over to the flitting shadows.
Some months, or weeks, perhaps, I have really forgotten which, drifted by before I saw her again, and then it was at a club ball, and this time I paid her considerable attention, in fact, I liked her better than any girl that I had yet met and was not afraid to show it, although I could not then muster up the necessary courage to go on boldly about my wooing.

In fact, I left a great deal to chance, and chance in this case treated me very kindly.
Some time later, when the summer days were long, I met her again in company with a Miss Cobb, later the wife of Johnnie McMullen, the base-ball pitcher, at Fairmount Park, and that was the day of my undoing.

After a pleasant time I accompanied her home to luncheon at her invitation, and that I had lost my heart long before the door of her house was reached I am now certain.
Once inside the door I asked her rather abruptly if her father or mother was at home, and I fancied she looked rather relieved when she found out that the only reason that I had asked her was that I wanted to smoke a cigar, and not to loot the house of its valuables.
Prior to that time I had circulated among the ladies but little, my whole mind having been concentrated on base-ball and billiard playing, and the particular fit of my coat or the fashion of my trousers caused me but little concern.