good land----"

"Land! What is good land to me? It will not be useful in my business. And there is another thing, you are not particular in your company. I have heard about your Methodist friends; there is Vestryman William Ustick, he was a Methodist servant, and he has become bankrupt; so, then----"

"You will not repay my father's frequent loans to you. If your father-in-law, Joris Van Heemskirk, were here----"

"I am not Joris Van Heemskirk. He is a rebel. I, who have always been loyal, have made twelve thousand dollars this last year. Is not that a hint for me to go on in the right way?"

Without waiting for the end of this self-complacent tirade, Neil went forward. Batavius was only a broken reed in his hand. Never before in all his life had he felt such humiliating anxiety. Even the slipping away of Haring and Rutgers, and the uncivil refusal of Batavius, were distinctly new and painful experiences. He felt, through Haring and Rutgers, the public withdrawal of sympathy and respect; and through Batavius, the coming bitterness of the want of ready money. The Semples had been fined; they were suspects; their names would now be on the roll of the doubtful, and it would be bad policy for the generality of citizens to be friendly with them. And the necessity for borrowing money revealed poverty, which otherwise they would have been able to conceal. He knew, also, that he would have to meet many such rebuffs, and he was well aware that his own proud temper would make them a pleasant payment to many whom he had offended by his exclusiveness.

As he approached the Bradley house, he put all these bitter thoughts aside. What were they in comparison with the sorrow Agnes was compelled to endure? His whole soul went out to the suffering girl, and he blamed himself for allowing any hope of Batavius to delay him. The very house had taken on an air of loneliness and calamity. The door was closed, the blinds down, and the wintry frost that had blackened the garden seemed in some inscrutable way to have touched the dwelling also. He saw the slave woman belonging to the Bradleys talking to a group of negroes down the road, and he did not call her. If Agnes was within, he would see her; and if her father had returned, they would probably be together.

Thinking thus, he knocked loudly, and then entered the little hall. All was silent as the grave. "Agnes! Agnes!" he cried, and the next moment she appeared at the head of the stairs. "Agnes!" he cried again, and the word was full of love and 

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