Both gained wealth, very likely, because the value of money was
first learned in the early Waldorf school of poverty. It was not an ill
north wind that imprisoned young Astor for weeks in the ice of the
Chesapeake Bay, as there on the small ship that brought him from Germany,
he listened to marvelous tales of fortunes to be made in furs in the
northwest. Shrewdly he determined first to acquire expert knowledge of
skins, and on landing he luckily found employment in a fur store in New
York at two dollars per week. This knowledge became the foundation of the
vast fortune of the Astor family. The colonel was told that the Waldorf
occupies the site of the town-house of John Jacob Astor, third of the
name, and was erected by his son, William Waldorf, ex-minister to Italy.
It was two o'clock when the Harrises entered the main dining-room for
their lunch. The colonel led the party, Alfonso conducting his sister
Lucille, the light blue ribbon at her throat of the tint of her
responsive eyes. Mrs. Harris came with Gertrude. The mother wore a gray
gown, and her daughter a pretty silk. This first entrance of the family
to the public dining-room caused a slight diversion among some of the
guests at lunch, where not a few rightly surmised who they were.
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