low such a woe. Hard to be deceived by those in whom so
many confided with such pure and magnanimous trust.

But they were not immoderate in their grief. The deception might have
been deeper, and the loss more alarming and great. And then what was
their grief at that hour, compared with the misery that must gnaw at
the hearts of the deceivers, as inseparable from their guilt. What
gift in the wide world would tempt them to exchange places with the
wretched creatures? What a thorny road of perdition must their way of
life be! How they must whiten and gasp, and what poignant pangs must
thrill them through and through when they remembered their villainous
deeds!

And then they remembered how thankful they should be, that the designs
of the criminals on Fanny had failed even of their first success, while
they wept to hear of the shame in which more than one poor victim had
been left; that they lost no confidence in George Ludlow; and none of
their family had been made less virtuous by them.

Fabens remembered his schemes of benevolence, and his project of a new
church and minister, without regret; but he crimsoned with blushing
shame, as he confessed the foolish idea to which they forced him to
listen, in regard to selling the old homestead and becoming a merchant.
"Just as though it could be possible for us to be as happy as we are,
in another sphere of life!" said he. "What in the world do I want to
make me happy and respectable, except more faith and goodness, and the
means to confer more good, that I did not possess before the scoundrels
came? I wonder that Matthew Fabens allowed them to make him such a
silly fool!" But it was long before he told them the dreams he
indulged in his Week of Castle Building.

They counselled together: with returning resignation and confidence,
they counselled.

"A thousand dollars!--a _thousand_!" said Fabens, with a long-drawn
sigh. "That is a large debt for me to owe--a large one! I must see
how I can settle it. I cannot bear to be in debt, even on another's
account. I must not sit down and give up. I cannot rest very well
till I do something to square it. He said they wouldn't sue me. I
never was sued, and I could not bear to be. But I have only about a
hundred dollars, and where can I raise the rest? The debt is a round
thousand in all."

"I do not know. It really looks dark before us after all," said Mrs.
Fabens. "A thousand dollars does not grow on every bu