disaster overtook them: the tenant of the warehouse gave up his lease,
declaring that the old building was too ruinous for use; and, as no one
succeeded him, Gardiston House beheld itself face to face with
starvation.

"If we wasn't so old, Pomp and me, Miss Gardis, we could work for yer,"
said Dinah, with great tears rolling down her wrinkled cheeks; "but we's
just good for not'ing now."

Cousin Copeland left his manuscripts and wandered aimlessly around the
garden for a day or two; then the little man rose early one morning and
walked into the city, with the hopeful idea of obtaining employment as a
clerk. "My handwriting is more than ordinarily ornate, I think," he said
to himself, with proud confidence.

Reaching the town at last, he walked past the stores several times and
looked timidly within; he thought perhaps some one would see him, and
come out. But no one came; and at last he ventured into a
clothing-store, through a grove of ticketed coats and suspended
trousers. The proprietor of the establishment, a Northern Hebrew whose
venture had not paid very well, heard his modest request, and asked what
he could do.

"I can write," said Cousin Copeland, with quiet pride; and in answer to
a sign he climbed up on a tall stool and proceeded to cover half a sheet
of paper in his best style. As he could not for the moment think of
anything else, he wrote out several paragraphs from the last family
document.

"Richard, the fourth of the name, a descendant on the maternal side from
the most respected and valorous family--"

"Oh, we don't care for that kind of writing; it's old-fashioned," said
Mr. Ottenheimer, throwing down the paper, and waving the applicant
toward the door with his fat hand. "I don't want my books frescoed."

Cousin Copeland retired to the streets again with a new sensation in his
heart. Old-fashioned? Was it old-fashioned? And even if so, was it any
the less a rarely attained and delicately ornate style of writing? He
could not understand it. Weary with the unaccustomed exercise, he sat
down at last on the steps of a church--an old structure whose spire bore
the marks of bomb-shells sent in from the blockading fleet outside the
bar during those months of dreary siege--and thought he would refresh
himself with some furtive mouthfuls of the corn-bread hidden in his
pocket for lunch.

"Good morning, sir," said a voice, just as he had drawn forth his little
parcel and was opening it behind the sk