erformed a solemn duty faithfully, and who was glad to find that his
present experience had strengthened rather than impaired his reliance
on the tribunals of his country. He embraced his family as one
snatched from great responsibility and peril; and yet Amos felt that
though acquitted by the jury, he was not by the town: he saw that in
the faces of some of the jury, and most of the audience, which he was
too shrewd an observer to misunderstand. He wished it were otherwise;
but he was contented to take his chance of some subsequent
revelation; and if it came not, of living down the foul suspicion.

But Amos had never thought of how he was to live. The cold looks,
averted faces, and rude scandal of the neighbours, could be borne,
because really there was some excuse in the circumstances, and
because he hoped that there would be a joyful ending of it all at
some future day. But the loss of custom first opened his eyes to his
real situation. No work came to his shop; he made articles, but he
could not sell them; and as the little money he had saved was
necessarily exhausted in the unavoidable expense of the trial, the
family found it impossible, aided by the utmost exertion and economy,
to meet their current outlay. One article of furniture after another
was reluctantly sacrificed, or some little comfort abridged, until,
at the end of months of degradation and absolute distress, their bare
board was spread within bare walls, and it became necessary to beg,
to starve, or to remove. The latter expedient had often been
suggested in family consultations, and it is one that in America is
the common remedy for all great calamities. The Sparkses would have
removed, but they still clung to the hope that the real perpetrator
would he discovered, and the mystery cleared up; and, besides, they
thought it would he an acknowledgment of the justice of the general
suspicion if they turned their hacks and fled. They lived upon the
expectation of the renewed confidence and companionship of old
friends and neighbours, when Providence should deem it right to draw
the veil aside. At length, to live longer in Philadelphia became
impossible, and the whole family prepared to depart. Their effects
were easily transported, and as they had had no credit since the
arrest, there was nobody to prevent them from seeking a livelihood
elsewhere.

Embarking in one of the river boats, they pushed up the Schuylkill,
and settled at Norristown. The whole f