g opposition.

Judge Custis took the field for Congress on the railroad issue, and was
elected, through the Forest vote, and his wife went through a Washington
season with as much dignity as enjoyment, few suspecting that she was
not the Judge's social equal.

The ancestral hat defied all worldly hostility, but became the iron
helmet to bend its wearer's back. He prayed in secret for some pitying
angel to break the spell that bound him to it, but none conceived that
he would let it go.

His boy grew strong, and took his father's dress to be a matter of
course; his wife pressed upon him the nauseous ornament he had so long
affected; a wide conspiracy seemed to have been formed to drive his head
into that hereditary wigwam, and he could not escape it.

Even Grandmother Tilghman, who now was an inmate of Teackle Hall, in
William's absence of years, forgot all about the queer hat, and rejoiced
to herself that "Bill" had not married "that political girl."

Milburn had maintained his financial solvency by turns and sorties that
even his enemies admired, but a railroad built along one man's spine and
terminated by a steeple depot on his head must wear out the unrelieved
individual at last.

The banks in Baltimore began to break; fierce riots ensued; the state
debt had mounted up, through aid to public works, to fifteen million
dollars; the Eastern Shore Railroad obtained, too late, the vote of the
subsidy expected, and the state treasurer could not find funds to pay
it.

The gazettes announced the failure of Meshach Milburn, Esq., of the
Eastern Shore.

Without an instant's hesitation, Vesta surrendered her own property, and
she and Rhoda Custis opened a select school in a part of Teackle Hall,
and let the remainder for residences.

"Why do you make this sacrifice?" asked her husband; "nobody expected
it."

"They may say we were married to protect my parents," Vesta answered,
"but not that it was to secure myself. My boy shall have a clear name."

His failure ended the active life of Meshach Milburn; too considerate of
his family to renew his former low endeavors, he became a clerk in the
county offices, through Judge Custis's influence, and wore his hat to
stipendiary labor with the regularity, but not the rebellious instincts,
of old days, becoming, instead, the victim of a certain religious trance
or apathy, which deepened with time.

Vesta saw that Milburn's misfortune extinguished the last remnant of
animo