nd, with a laugh
of bitterest meaning, he left the room, and was soon seen issuing from
the little garden into the road.

What a sad day, full of gloomy forebodings, was that for her! She knew
well how all the easy and careless humor of her father had been changed
by calamity into a spirit fierce and resentful; that, suspectful of
insult on every hand, he held himself ever prepared to meet the most
harmless remark with words of defiance. An imaginary impression that
the world had agreed to scorn him, made him adopt a bearing at once
aggressive and offensive; and he who was once a proverb for good temper
became irritable and savage to a degree.

What might not come of such a temperament, tried in its tenderest spot?
What might occur to expose him to the heartless sneers of those who
neither knew his qualities nor his trials? These were her thoughts as
she walked to and fro in her little room, unable to read, unable
to write, though she made several attempts to begin a letter to her
brother. The dark future also lowered before, without one flicker of
light to pierce its gloom. How were they to live? In a few days more
they would be at the end of their frail resources,--something less than
two pounds was all that they had in the world. How she envied those in
some foreign land who could stoop to the most menial labor, unseen and
unremembered by their own. How easily, she thought, poverty might be
borne, if divested of the terrible contrast with a former condition.
Could they by any effort raise the means to emigrate,--and where to?
Might not Mr. Dunn be the person to give counsel in such a case? From
all she had heard of him, he was conversant with every career, every
walk, and every condition. Doubtless he could name the very colony, and
the very spot to suit them,--nor impossible that he might aid them to
reach it. If they prospered, they could repay him. They might pledge
themselves to such a condition on this head as he would dictate. How,
then, to approach him? A letter? And yet a letter was always so wanting
in the great requisite of answering doubts as they arose, and meeting
difficulties by ready re-Joinder. A personal interview would do this.
Then why not ask for an audience of him? "I'll call upon him at once,"
said she; "he may receive me without other solicitation,--my name will
surely secure me that much of attention." Would her father approve of
such a step?--would it not appear to his eyes an act of meannes