nd prize."

"Oh! If the house and furniture will pay the notes I'm content,
especially if you can contrive to keep the lots. Dosie will part with
her handkerchief, too, I dare say, if that will do any good."

"By George! that will be a capital idea--yes, the handkerchief must be
sent back to-morrow morning; THAT will make a famous talk. I only
bought it because Munny was present, and I wanted to get fifty thousand
dollars out of him, to meet this crisis. The thing didn't succeed; but,
no matter, the handkerchief will tell in settling up. That
handkerchief, Dosie, may be made to cover a hundred lots."

In what manner I was to open so much, like the tent of the Arabian
Nights, was a profound mystery to me then, as well as it was to the
ladies; but the handsome Eudosia placed me in her father's hand with a
frank liberality that proved she was not altogether without good
qualities. As I afterwards discovered, indeed, these two females had
most of the excellences of a devoted wife and daughter, their
frivolities being the result of vicious educations or of no educations
at all, rather than of depraved hearts. When Mr. Halfacre went into
liquidation, as it is called, and compromised with his creditors,
reserving to himself a pretty little capital of some eighty or a
hundred thousand dollars, by means of judicious payments to
confidential creditors, his wife and daughter saw all THEY most prized
taken away, and the town was filled with the magnitude of their
sacrifices, and with the handsome manner in which both submitted to
make them. By this ingenious device, the insolvent not only preserved
his character, by no means an unusual circumstance in New York,
however, but he preserved about half of his bona fide estate also; his
creditors, as was customary, doing the PAYING.

It is unnecessary to dwell on the remainder of this dialogue, my own
adventures so soon carrying me into an entirely different sphere. The
following morning, however, as soon as he had breakfasted, Mr. Halfacre
put me in his pocket, and walked down street, with the port of an
afflicted and stricken, but thoroughly honest man. When he reached the
shop-door of Bobbinet & Co., he walked boldly in, and laid me on the
counter with a flourish so meek, that even the clerks, a very
matter-of-fact caste in general, afterwards commented on it.

"Circumstances of an unpleasant nature, on which I presume it is
unnecessary to dwell, compel me to offer you this handk