Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/119

 who enters upon the practice of the law, he was beloved by all who knew him and soon died.

Of another mold was S. Davis Page, who harked back to the Byrds of Westover and other noted Virginia families. He had married and gone to Europe to escape the animosities which had to be borne by those of Southern sympathies in the early days of the war, but had returned to complete his studies. His studies had been too much interrupted to enable him to become profoundly learned in the law, but he had no intention of being set aside, and life had much in store for him. He secured a fair practice and contended on behalf of his clients pugnaciously. He entered politics on the Democratic side, sat in the city councils and became city treasurer. His social success was pronounced and his son, William Byrd Page, in his day, at the University of Pennsylvania, held the world's record for high jumping.

A little later John Sword came into the office. He had great aptitude for the law and was besides a close student. Mr. McCall thought so well of him that he took him, after admission to the bar, into some of his cases. Sword, after editing some volumes of reports, abandoned the law and, as I have written, became a devotee. He went to Oxford University and, entering the ministry, appeared later as the highest of high church Episcopalians. His life thereafter was spent in genuflexions and self-abnegation. Fond of the society of women, he refused marriage. Attracting the attention of Mrs. Paran Stevens, a wealthy widow, she wanted to do much for him, but he sought work in the slums and among the poor and the lowly. He left the courts literally to fall upon his knees. Life is filled with strange contrasts. Before my time, Mr. McCall had a pet student, who married well, lived well, held his head high in society and in the end robbed the estates entrusted to him, forged mortgages and ran away to a remote country, disappearing in the darkness.

Among the students, I was the only one who had not Rh