e heard the weak, spasmodic wail of another Dolph_ 88

_"Central American," said the clerk_ 107

_"Looks like his father," was Mr. Daw's comment_ 109

_O'Reagan of Castle Reagan_ 118

_"If it hadn't been for the Dolphs, devil the rattle you'd
have had"_ 120

_"I know'd you'd take me in, Mist' Dolph," he panted_ 132

_"Have you got a nigger here?"_ 133

_Abram Van Riper makes a business communication._ 141

_And so she set his necktie right, and he went_ 144

_Looking on his face, she saw death quietly coming upon him_ 149

_Finial_ 151

THE STORY

OF A NEW YORK HOUSE.

I.

"I hear," said Mrs. Abram Van Riper, seated at her breakfast-table, and
watching the morning sunlight dance on the front of the great Burrell
house on the opposite side of Pine Street, "that the Dolphs are going to
build a prodigious fine house out of town--somewhere up near the
Rynders's place."

"And I hear," said Abram Van Riper, laying down last night's _Evening
Post_, "that Jacob Dolph is going to give up business. And if he does,
it's a disgrace to the town."

It was in the summer of 1807, and Abram Van Riper was getting well over
what he considered the meridian line of sixty years. He was hale and
hearty; his business was flourishing; his boy was turning out all that
should have been expected of one of the Van Riper stock; the refracted
sunlight from the walls of the stately house occupied by the Cashier of
the Bank of the United States lit with a subdued secondary glimmer the
Van Riper silver on the breakfast-table--the squat teapot and slop-bowl,
the milk-pitcher, that held a quart, and the apostle-spoon in the broken
loaf-sugar on the Delft plate. Abram Van Riper was decorously happy, as
a New York merchant should be. In all other respects, he was pleased to
think, he was what a New York merchant should be, and the word of the
law and the prophets was fulfilled with him and in his house.

"I'm sure," Mrs. Van Riper began again, somewhat querulously, "I can't
see why Jacob Dolph shouldn't give up business, if he's so minded. He's
a monstrous fortune, from all I hear--a good hundred thousand dollars."

"