,
giving him the right to renew his lease for a second ten years, if he
chose to demand it, when the first one should expire. This was an act of
judicious foresight. When, at the expiration of the first lease, he
visited his landlord, that gentleman, on seeing him enter his
counting-room, said:

"Well, Mr. Girard, you have made out so well by your bargain that I
suppose you will hardly hold me to the renewal of the lease for ten
years more."

"I have come," replied Gerard, with a look of grim satisfaction, "to
secure the ten years more. I shall not let you off."

Nor did he. And the great profits he derived from that fortunate lease
greatly broadened the foundation of his subsequently colossal fortune.

As yet, however, his wealth was very moderate, for in 1790, at the
dissolution of a partnership he had formed with his brother who had come
to America, his own share of the business amounted to only thirty
thousand dollars. And yet, forty years later, he died leaving a fortune
of ten millions.

It is sad; but may be profitable to know, that his happiness did not
increase with his possessions. While his balance-sheets recorded
increasing assets, his hearth-stone echoed louder and wilder echoes of
discordant voices. He was jealous, arbitrary, and passionate; his
unfortunate wife was resentful, fiery, and finally so furious that, in
1790, she was admitted as a maniac to an insane hospital, which she
never left until she was carried to her grave, unwept and unregretted,
twenty-five years after. Their only child had gone to an early grave.
Girard's nature must have been strangely perverted if he counted, as he
seems to have done, the pleasure of making money a compensation for the
absence of true womanly love from his cheerless fireside. His heart, no
doubt, was as unsentimental as the gold he loved to hoard.

The terrible retribution which about this time overtook the
slave-holders of St. Domingo, when their slaves threw off their
oppressive yoke, added considerably to his rising fortunes. He happened
to have two vessels in that port when the tocsin of insurrection rang
out its fearful notes. Frantic with apprehension, many planters rushed
with their costliest treasure to these ships, left them in care of their
officers, and went back for more. But the blood-stained hand of massacre
prevented their return. They and their heirs perished by knife or
bullet, and the unclaimed treasure was taken to Philadelphia, to swell