aimed, wildly, as I entered the room.
"Your estate--mine--Mabel's--all swept away with one fell swoop, Miriam!
The Bank of Pennsylvania has failed; it is discovered that Mr. Biddle
has proved defaulter, and we are ruined!"

"I will never believe it, Evelyn!" I exclaimed, vehemently, "until he
tells me so with his own lips. This is one of Mr. Bainrothe's fictions;
he is trying to wake us up a little, that is all. Mr. Biddle is the
Bayard of bankers--'_sans peur et sans reproche_.' As to that bank, did
not my father believe it to be as indestructible as the United States,
the government itself? Nay, did not Bainrothe himself do all he could to
convince him of it, and induce him to invest in its stocks? The wily fox
had his motive, no doubt, but it surely could not have been our ruin!
Our own fortunes are too intimately involved in his prosperity for this.
Besides, why have not the newspapers told us of this?"

All this time Evelyn was sobbing convulsively, and what I have told
continuously here was said by me in a far more fragmentary way between
her bursts of grief. She ceased now, and looked up, with some effort at
calmness.

"The newspapers _have_ been discussing it for months past, all but Mr.
Biddle's organ, and that alone was permitted to enter our doors. Mr.
Bainrothe acknowledges this now. Have you not noticed the irregularity
of our Washington papers?"

"No; I so rarely read them, you know."

"Mr. Bainrothe, with mistaken charity," she resumed, "I fear, sought to
shield us as long as possible from the blow, which was inevitable sooner
or later; or perhaps he hoped still for an adjustment of affairs, that
might have left us a competence at least. But he was deceived, Miriam;
we are worth nothing--a round naught--" and she suited the action to the
word by the union of the tips of her thumb and finger--"is the figure
whereby to describe our fortunes now; and the heiress and her once
dependent friend and sister are alike--beggars! All brought to one level
at last--there is comfort in that thought, at least! Ha! ha! ha!" and
she laughed wildly, horribly. I never before heard such laughter.

"Beggary is a word I repudiate, Evelyn, in any case," I said, firmly;
"and we, it seems, if this frightful thing be true, are not alone in
ruin. Be calm, dear Evelyn! Learn to bear with dignity our fate. We must
sustain each other now--be all in all to one another, as we have never
been before. Thank God! let us both thank Go