, at the ages of sixty years and upward, had
cleared their skirts of business, and settled down to a calm retrospect
of the past, and serene anticipations of the future. They were
evidently destined for a good old age, and had fat pocket books to help
them through. The proper place to look for this class of retired
merchants is on the tax books, and not in public assemblies, or among
the Directing Boards of benevolent institutions. They are good,
charitable souls; but, having got out of business, they desire to keep
out of it literally, leaving to a younger generation the task of
managing men and affairs.

A more stylish vehicle deposited at the door a bachelor Bank President,
who was not only the old personal friend of the host, but his trusted
adviser in business affairs. The parlor of the ---- Bank was one of the
few places that old Van Quintem still visited in the bustling haunts of
the city; and to old Van Quintem's house the bachelor Bank President
made monthly pilgrimages of friendship. He was a handsome man of fifty,
with long white hair, which matched beautifully with his yet ruddy
cheeks, and a figure portly and full of strength. Nobody but himself
knew why so eligible a man remained a bachelor.

In a humpbacked chaise drawn by an exemplary horse, there rode a fat and
pleasant old gentleman, who was uncomfortably swathed about the neck
with a white cravat. He crawled from his narrow coop with the nimbleness
of one who is on professional business. He was followed by his wife, a
little woman, who was the mother of ten children from two to twenty
years of age--just two years apart, and all strongly resembling their
father. This fat, pleasant old gentleman was the old-fashioned minister
of the old-fashioned church to which Mr. Van Quintem had belonged for
forty years. The little woman was his second wife; and there was a first
crop of children, who had been safely launched on the world for many
years, and were doing extremely well.

The sole surviving relatives of old Van Quintem were three elderly
ladies, who, by some contagious fatality, remained unmarried. After
pining romantically over their doom for some time, they had settled down
to the conviction that they were much happier single than wedded, and
that they had escaped a great many dangers and disappointments--which
was unquestionably true. It was really pleasant for them to reflect that
the snug property which their father left them had not been squande