pman was such a jewel of a husband, and was so
clever at inventing the means of making a fortune for other people.

The brain of Nyack was terribly disordered over the fortunes that were
to be made in a month for all who invested in Kidd Discovery stock. Even
the good Dominie, led away by the temptation, had invested all his
savings, and had his pockets full of Chapman's "equivalents," from which
he looked for a fortune in a very short time. Finally the innocent
settlers began to regard Chapman as a great genius, who had invented
this new way of making their fortunes out of sheer goodness. "I want to
tell you, my good friends," he would say to them, patronizingly, "you
will appreciate me better as we become better acquainted. Invest your
money, and there's a fortune for you all." And they took his word, and
invested their money, and, many of them, everything they had.

We must go back into the city now. It was a morning in early May. Knots
of men were standing on the corners of Wall and Pearl streets, each
discussing in animated tones some question of finance or trade. Men with
hurried steps and curious faces passed to and fro, threading their way
through the pressing throng, as if the nation was in peril and they were
on a mission to save it. And yet it was only an expression of that
eagerness which our people display in their haste to despatch some
object in the ordinary business routine of the day.

It was on this morning that a woman of small and compact figure, dressed
in plain green silk, a red India shawl, and a large, odd-shaped straw
bonnet, called a "poke" in those days, on her head, and trimmed inside
with a profusion of artificial flowers, the whole giving her an air of
extreme quaintness, was seen looking up doubtingly at the door opening
to the stairs at the top of which Topman and Gusher had their
counting-rooms. She had the appearance of a woman in good circumstances,
just from the country, where her style of dress might have been in
fashion at that day. Her age, perhaps, was in the vicinity of forty, for
her hair was changing to grey, and hung in neat braids down the sides of
her face, which was round and ruddy, and still gleamed with the
freshness of youth. Her shawl-pin was a heavy gold anchor and chain, and
her wrists were clasped with heavy gold bracelets, bearing a shield, on
which was inscribed a sailor with his quadrant poised, in the act of
taking the sun. I ought also to add that she carried a