pired less by
sociability than by the virtuous instinct which animated her being. Mr.
Fowler had taken her in to dinner, and while she lent an inert attention
to Billy's jests, he talked across Gabriella to Judge Crowborough, who
was eating his soup with the complete absorption of a man to whom the
smallest of his appetities is sacred. It was a grievance of Mrs.
Fowler's that her husband would never, as she said, "pay any attention
to women," and in order to feel assured of even so much as a cheerful
noise at his end of the table, she was obliged to place within hearing
distance of him somebody who could talk fluently, if not eloquently, of
the stock market.

To Gabriella's surprise, her father-in-law, who had appeared inert and
listless at breakfast, became, in the stimulating presence of the judge,
not only awake, but mildly animated. She had felt before the charm in
his scholarly face, with its look of detached spirituality so strangely
out of keeping with the calling he pursued; and she recognized now the
quality of controlled force which had enabled him to hold his own in
the financial whirlpool of his country. Had the girl known more of life,
she would have understood that in the American business world there were
hundreds of such men winning their way and leaving their mark at that
moment of history--men whose natures were redeemed from grossness by the
peculiar idealism they infused into their material battles. Of
Scotch-Irish inheritance, the direct descendant of one Gregory
Truesdale, who had died a martyr for Presbyterianism, Archibald Fowler
was inspired by something of the austere devotion which had fortified
his religious ancestor. Since his college days his private life had been
irreproachable. Though he was a stronger character than his wife, he
regarded her with almost superstitious reverence, and made no decision
above Wall Street without consulting her. His heart, and as much of his
time as he could spare from business, were hers, and she made the most
of them. Wo

Martha Finley (1828 - 1909) was a teacher and author of numerous works, the most well known being the 28 volume Elsie Dinsmore series which was published over a span of 38 years. The daughter of Presbyterian minister Dr. James Brown Finley and his wife and cousin Maria Theresa Brown Finley, she was born on April 26th, 1828 in Chillicothe, Ohio. Finley wrote many of her books under the psodonym Martha Farquharson. She died in 1909 in Elkton, Maryland, where she moved in 1876.

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