rner the cotton
market, he could mark with his own eyes the good he might accomplish.
It required no great stretch of imagination to see the town, a few
years hence, a busy hive of industry, where no man, and no woman
obliged to work, need be without employment at fair wages; where the
trinity of peace, prosperity and progress would reign supreme; where
men like Fetters and methods like his would no longer be tolerated.
The forces of enlightenment, set in motion by his aid, and supported
by just laws, should engage the retrograde forces represented by
Fetters. Communities, like men, must either grow or decay, advance or
decline; they could not stand still. Clarendon was decaying. Fetters
was the parasite which, by sending out its roots toward rich and poor
alike, struck at both extremes of society, and was choking the life of
the town like a rank and deadly vine.

The colonel could, if need be, spare the year or two of continuous
residence needed to rescue Clarendon from the grasp of Fetters. The
climate agreed with Phil, who was growing like a weed; and the colonel
could easily defer for a little while his scheme of travel, and the
further disposition of his future.

So, when he reached home that night, he wrote an answer to a long and
gossipy letter received from Kirby about that time, in which the
latter gave a detailed account of what was going on in the colonel's
favourite club and among their mutual friends, and reported progress
in the search for some venture worthy of their mettle. The colonel
replied that Phil and he were well, that he was interesting himself in
a local enterprise which would certainly occupy him for some months,
and that he would not visit New York during the summer, unless it were
to drop in for a day or two on business and return immediately.

A letter from Mrs. Jerviss, received about the same time, was less
easily disposed of. She had learned, from Kirby, of the chivalrous
manner in which Mr. French had protected her interests and spared her
feelings in the fight with Consolidated Bagging. She had not been
able, she said, to thank him adequately before he went away, because
she had not known how much she owed him; nor could she fittingly
express herself on paper. She could only renew her invitation to him
to join her house party at Newport in July. The guests would be
friends of his--she would be glad to invite any others that he might
suggest. She would then have the opportunity to tha