red feelings, she had brought
Napoleon Bowles into "retirement" with the family. And that faithful
domestic accommodated his pride of a Sunday by dressing in his livery
and top-boots, and walking out, to the astonishment and amusement of a
crowd of curious urchins, who were sure to gather about him.

As for Chapman, he went about the town as if nothing had happened,
renewing acquaintances, and declaring there was no honester man in the
settlement than Hanz Toodleburg; that the charges against his honesty,
and his connection with the Kidd Discovery Company, were all scandals,
got up by bad men; and that he had been deceived by them himself.

During the few days Chapman had been in Nyack, he had made himself
appear so good a friend of Hanz that the honest settlers not only began
to express sympathy for him in his misfortunes, but to enquire what they
could do to put him on his feet again. When, however, he told them it
was not their sympathy he wanted, but their money to assist him in
building a steamboat two hundred feet long, and that he had matured a
plan for a railroad, so that they might ride from Nyack to New York in
an hour, they became alarmed, put their heads together wisely, and
declared the man mad beyond cure.

Here I must leave Chapman waiting to see his way clear. He came of that
old round-head stock which, wanting its way always, ready to meddle with
everything, never contented, ready to play the sycophant to gain power,
selfish and arrogant in the use of it, is, nevertheless, found giving
shape, action, and momentum to all our great enterprises. Out of all the
trouble Chapman had caused Nyack, there had come some good that would
be turned to account in the future. Misfortune had bowed, not broken his
spirit. He was again prepared to invent a new religion, to build a
church, to keep a boarding-house, to start a bank or run a
steamboat--and all with modern improvements.

The little church bell was still ringing, and the crowd still kept
increasing in numbers and cheerfulness. "The Dominie's coming! the
Dominie's coming! The Dominie's coming!" was lisped by a score of lips,
as the attention of the people was attracted down the road. There the
old Dominie came, mounted on a clumsy-footed, big-headed, bay cob--a
little bright-eyed girl, whose face was full of sweetness and love, and
dressed in blue and white, riding behind him. His broad, kindly face,
shadowed by a wide-brimmed hat, his flowing white hair, h