h the members find it
so difficult to explain to their constituents; and Laura would not be
lying in the Tombs, awaiting her trial for murder, and doing her best,
by the help of able counsel, to corrupt the pure fountain of criminal
procedure in New York.

If Henry Brierly had been blown up on the first Mississippi steamboat he
set foot on, as the chances were that he would be, he and Col. Sellers
never would have gone into the Columbus Navigation scheme, and probably
never into the East Tennessee Land scheme, and he would not now be
detained in New York from very important business operations on the
Pacific coast, for the sole purpose of giving evidence to convict of
murder the only woman he ever loved half as much as he loves himself.
If Mr. Bolton had said the little word "no" to Mr. Bigler, Alice Montague
might now be spending the winter in Philadelphia, and Philip also
(waiting to resume his mining operations in the spring); and Ruth would
not be an assistant in a Philadelphia hospital, taxing her strength with
arduous routine duties, day by day, in order to lighten a little the
burdens that weigh upon her unfortunate family.

It is altogether a bad business. An honest historian, who had progressed
thus far, and traced everything to such a condition of disaster and
suspension, might well be justified in ending his narrative and writing
--"after this the deluge." His only consolation would be in the reflection
that he was not responsible for either characters or events.

And the most annoying thought is that a little money, judiciously
applied, would relieve the burdens and anxieties of most of these people;
but affairs seem to be so arranged that money is most difficult to get
when people need it most.

A little of what Mr. Bolton has weakly given to unworthy people would now
establish his family in a sort of comfort, and relieve Ruth of the
excessive toil for which she inherited no adequate physical vigor.
A little money would make a prince of Col. Sellers; and a little more
would calm the anxiety of Washington Hawkins about Laura, for however the
trial ended, he could feel sure of extricating her in the end. And if
Philip had a little money he could unlock the stone door in the mountain
whence would issue a stream of shining riches. It needs a golden wand to
strike that rock. If the Knobs University bill could only go through,
what a change would be wrought in the condition of most of the persons in
this