Paul Ralston by Mary Jane Holmes

It was the Saturday before the wedding, which was to take place on Thursday of the next week. Many of the guests from a distance had arrived. The Ralston House was full, Miss Hansford's cottage was full, as were some of the other cottages engaged for the occasion. The Harbor Hotel, as the largest and most expensive and most fashionable house in Oak City, was crowded to its utmost capacity. "Positively no more room, if you take a shelf in a closet," the distracted clerks said to the mob of people who came as usual in the afternoon boat clamoring for accommodations. Those who had families and were expected for Sunday were easily disposed of, while the rest were turned away. There was a good deal of fault-finding and some swearing among the disappointed ones, as they left the hotel, not knowing where to go next.

One of the number stayed with his lips pressed tightly together and a look of determination in his dark eyes, as he leaned against the railing around the office. He had fought his way to that place and kept it through all the jostling and pushing around him. He had heard scores refused and sent away, and, either because his brain was muddled or because he overrated his influence and powers of persuasion, he hoped to get in somewhere, "if it is in the attic," he said, when he at last stood alone and reached out his hand for the register in which to sign his name.