beginning; but then I suppose it would not have suited mother
for all summer.

"I had a great worry at Sharon, Miss Euphrasia, and it has
grown worse since. I can't help being afraid mother has been
dreadfully cheated. We got acquainted with some people there;
a Mr. and Mrs. Farron Saftleigh, rich Westerners, who made a
good deal of show of everything; money, and talk, and conjugal
devotion, and friendship. Mrs. Saftleigh came a great deal to
mother's room, and gave her all the little chat of the
place,--I'm afraid I don't amuse mother myself as much as I
ought, but some things do seem so tiresome to tell over, when
you've seen more than enough of them yourself,--and she used
to take her out to drive nearly every day.

"Well, it seemed that Mr. Saftleigh had gone out West only six
years ago, and had made all his money since, in land and
railroad business. Mrs. Saftleigh said that 'whatever Farron
touched was sure to double.' She _meant_ money; but I thought
of our perplexities when she said it, and he certainly has
managed to double _them_. He went to New York two or three
times while we were at the Springs; he was transacting
railroad business; getting stock taken up in the new piece of
road laid out from Latterend to Donnowhair; and he was at the
head of a company that had bought up all the land along the
route. 'Sure to sell at enormous profits any time after the
railroad was opened.' Poor mother got so feverish about it!
She didn't see why our little money shouldn't be doubled as
well as other people's. And then she cried so about being left
a widow, with nobody out in the world to get a share of
anything for her; and Mrs. Saftleigh used to tell her that
such work was just what friends were made for, and it was so
providential that she had met her here just now; and she was
always calling her 'sweet Mrs. Argenter.'

"Nobody could help it; mother worried herself sick, when I
begged her to wait till we could come home and consult some
friend we knew. 'The chance would be lost forever,' she said;
'and who could be kinder than the Saftleighs, or could know
half so much? Mr. Farron Saftleigh risked his own money in
it.' And at last, she wrote home and had her Dorbury mortgage
sold, and pai