e Mills at Wilmington,
Delaware.

During the War of 1812 he had earned, as was very well known, an
extraordinary fortune in this trading; for flour and corn meal sold at
fabulous prices in the French, Spanish, Dutch, and Danish islands, cut
off, as they were, from the rest of the world by the British blockade.

The running of this blockade was one of the most hazardous maritime
ventures possible, but Captain Cooper had met with such unvaried
success, and had sold his merchandise at such incredible profit that,
at the end of the war, he found himself to have become one of the
wealthiest merchants of his native city.

It was known at one time that his balance in the Mechanics' Bank was
greater than that of any other individual depositor upon the books, and
it was told of him that he had once deposited in the bank a chest of
foreign silver coin, the exchanged value of which, when translated
into American currency, was upward of forty-two thousand dollars--a
prodigious sum of money in those days.

In person, Captain Cooper was tall and angular of frame. His face was
thin and severe, wearing continually an unsmiling, mask-like expression
of continent and unruffled sobriety. His manner was dry and taciturn,
and his conduct and life were measured to the most absolute accord with
the teachings of his religious belief.

He lived in an old-fashioned house on Front Street below Spruce--as
pleasant, cheerful a house as ever a trading captain could return to.
At the back of the house a lawn sloped steeply down toward the river. To
the south stood the wharf and storehouses; to the north an orchard and
kitchen garden bloomed with abundant verdure. Two large chestnut trees
sheltered the porch and the little space of lawn, and when you sat under
them in the shade you looked down the slope between two rows of box
bushes directly across the shining river to the Jersey shore.

At the time of our story--that is, about the year 1820--this property
had increased very greatly in value, but it was the old home of the
Coopers, as Eleazer Cooper was entirely rich enough to indulge his fancy
in such matters. Accordingly, as he chose to live in the same
house where his father and his grandfather had dwelt before him, he
peremptorily, if quietly, refused all offers looking toward the purchase
of the lot of ground--though it was now worth five or six times its
former value.

As was said, it was a cheerful, pleasant home, impressing you when y