al, it
was not incessant. Sometimes there was a week of repeated reverses,
when he had to keep his teeth set and to hold on hard to all his
hopefulness; and then days came of negative result or slight success,
when he was full of his jokes at the tea-table, and wanted to go to the
theatre, or to do something to cheer Penelope up. In some miraculous
way, by some enormous stroke of success which should eclipse the
brightest of his past prosperity, he expected to do what would
reconcile all difficulties, not only in his own affairs, but in hers
too. "You'll see," he said to his wife; "it's going to come out all
right. Irene'll fix it up with Bill's boy, and then she'll be off
Pen's mind; and if things go on as they've been going for the last two
days, I'm going to be in a position to do the favours myself, and Pen
can feel that SHE'S makin' a sacrifice, and then I guess may be she'll
do it. If things turn out as I expect now, and times ever do get any
better generally, I can show Corey that I appreciate his offer. I can
offer him the partnership myself then."

Even in the other moods, which came when everything had been going
wrong, and there seemed no way out of the net, there were points of
consolation to Lapham and his wife. They rejoiced that Irene was safe
beyond the range of their anxieties, and they had a proud satisfaction
that there had been no engagement between Corey and Penelope, and that
it was she who had forbidden it. In the closeness of interest and
sympathy in which their troubles had reunited them, they confessed to
each other that nothing would have been more galling to their pride
than the idea that Lapham should not have been able to do everything
for his daughter that the Coreys might have expected. Whatever
happened now, the Coreys could not have it to say that the Laphams had
tried to bring any such thing about.

Bellingham had lately suggested an assignment to Lapham, as the best
way out of his difficulties. It was evident that he had not the money
to meet his liabilities at present, and that he could not raise it
without ruinous sacrifices, that might still end in ruin after all. If
he made the assignment, Bellingham argued, he could gain time and make
terms; the state of things generally would probably improve, since it
could not be worse, and the market, which he had glutted with his
paint, might recover and he could start again. Lapham had not agreed
with him. When his reverses f