eart condemns him but shames him not. He restricted himself to
grumbling, and brooded to counterplot the mischiefs of the minister.
What right had he to injure him for the sake of the poor? Was it not
written in the Bible: Thou shall not favor the poor man in his cause?
Was it not written also: For every man shall bear his own burden? That
was common sense! He did his share in supporting the poor that were
church-members, but was he to suffer for improvements on Drake's
property for the sake of a pack of roughs! Let him be charitable at his
own cost! etc., etc. Self is prolific in argument.

It suited Mr. Drake well, notwithstanding his church republican
theories, against which, in the abstract, I could ill object, seeing the
whole current of Bible teaching is toward the God-inspired ideal
commonwealth--it suited a man like Mr. Drake well, I say, to be an
autocrat, and was a most happy thing for his tenants, for certainly no
other system of government than a wise autocracy will serve in regard to
the dwellings of the poor. And already, I repeat, he had effected not a
little. Several new cottages had been built, and one incorrigible old
one pulled down. But it had dawned upon him that, however desirable it
might be on a dry hill-side, on such a foundation as this a cottage was
the worst form of human dwelling that could be built. For when the whole
soil was in time of rain like a full sponge, every room upon it was
little better than a hollow in a cloud, and the right thing must be to
reduce contact with the soil as much as possible. One high house,
therefore, with many stories, and stone feet to stand upon, must be the
proper kind of building for such a situation. He must lift the first
house from the water, and set as many more houses as convenient upon it.

He had therefore already so far prepared for the building of such a
house as should lift a good many families far above all deluge; that is,
he had dug the foundation, and deep, to get at the more solid ground. In
this he had been precipitate, as not unfrequently in his life; for while
he was yet meditating whether he should not lay the foundation
altogether solid, of the unporous stone of the neighborhood, the rains
began, and there was the great hole, to stand all the winter full of
water, in the middle of the cottages!

The weather cleared again, but after a St. Martin's summer unusually
prolonged, the rain came down in terrible earnest. Day after day, the
clo