had no money to spend for dress, and she would accept no one's charity,"
she declared in her haughty way. But she could not stay in the house
forever: so she took long walks over wild country ways, angry with the
world, herself, and every thing. A fierce-eyed, beautiful girl, clinging
desperately to her isolation, and yet eating out her very heart in
loneliness.

The time ran on rapidly. September came around. Hope Mills did not make
as good a report this time. Business had been very dull. Sales were next
to nothing. People did not need much in warm weather, and orders were
very light. However, several other branches of industry in Yerbury
improved a trifle. Railroads, stocks, and real estate were fast becoming
dead speculations: so men ventured to put their money warily into
business again.

But the bottom had not been reached. Early in October there was a
tremendous failure of an old and well-known firm of woollen-manufacturers.
The bankrupt stock was sold at auction. Then another, and various
smaller houses. The market was suddenly flooded. No one could sell. No
one seemed to need new garments of any kind. Men wore their old clothes,
and shrugged their shoulders in a sort of contemptuous content, as if
they had suddenly found a great charm in a half-worn, shabby overcoat.
Robert Winston went hither and yon. Not a piece or a yard would any one
take.

There was a great deal of discussion in various daily journals. The
business had been overdone again. Foreign markets must be found. We
could not compete with foreign manufacturers. Our wool was inferior, our
looms were inferior, our men knew so little, and demanded such high
wages. Then we never could do any thing under the present wretched
tariff and the skinning system of taxation. It took all a man could
make. Another sapient statesman declared nothing could be done without
more money. The contraction had been so great that not a man could do
business. Then came a long list of figures to prove what a very little
money was left in the country. Newspaper war raged, first on this side,
then on that. If we did this, we would surely be ruined: if we did not,
then ruin was inevitable.

Jack used to try for some light, no matter how faint. It seemed to him,
if the great men at the helm of the national ship would set to work
vigorously to widen and strengthen the commerce of the nation, instead
of discussing such frivolous issues, prosperity might dawn once more. He
we