questions were asked. The banking-house of Checkynshaw,
Hart, & Co. increased in wealth and importance, and had extensive
foreign connections in England. Every year or two the head of the house
crossed the ocean, partly, as he declared, to transact his business in
London, and partly to visit his child in France.

CHAPTER X.

THE WITTLEWORTH FAMILY.

While everything appeared to be well with the banker, into whose
exchequer the revenues of the block of stores flowed with
unintermitting regularity, the affairs of the other branch of the
Osborne family were in a far less hopeful condition. John Wittleworth
drank to excess, and did not attend to his business. It was said that
he gambled largely; but it was not necessary to add this vice to the
other in order to rob him of his property, and filch from him his good
name.

He failed in business, and was unable to reestablish himself. He
obtained a situation as a clerk, but his intemperate habits unfitted
him for his duties. If he could not take care of his own affairs, much
less could he manage the affairs of another. He had become a confirmed
sot, had sacrificed everything, and given himself up to the demon of
the cup. He became a ragged, filthy drunkard; and as such, friends who
had formerly honored him refused to recognize him, or to permit him to
enter their counting-rooms. Just before the opening of our story, he
had been arrested as a common drunkard; and it was even a relief to his
poor wife to know that he was safely lodged in the House of Correction.

When Mrs. Wittleworth found she could no longer depend upon her natural
protector, she went to work with her own hands, like an heroic woman,
as she was. As soon as her son was old enough to be of any assistance
to her, a place was found for him in a lawyer's office, where he
received a couple of dollars a week. Her own health giving way under
the drudgery of toil, to which she had never been accustomed, she was
obliged to depend more and more upon Fitz, who, in the main, was not a
bad boy, though his notions were not suited to the station in which he
was compelled to walk. At last she was obliged to appeal to her
brother-in-law, who gave Fitz his situation.

Fitz was rather "airy." He had a better opinion of himself than anybody
else had--a vicious habit, which the world does not readily forgive. He
wanted to dress himself up, and "swell" round among bigger men than
himself. His mother was disappointed i