rishing
business in New York; but seven years ago he failed, and so, quite
penniless, his health sadly broken, his cheerfulness and energy all
gone with his fortunes, without heart for any new beginning, he
returned to Hendrik, his native place.

There, the friends of his youth, steadfast and generous, pitying his
sad plight, and having perfect faith in his unimpeached integrity,
purchased--principally at the sale in bankruptcy of his own effects--a
modest stock of new and second-hand books and magazines, together with
some stationery and a few fancy articles in that line, and
reestablished him in the humble but peaceful calling of a country
bookseller. They called his shop "The Hendrik Athenaeum and Circulating
Library," and all the county subscribed; for, at first, the Wimples
were the fashionable charity, "the Wimples were always so very
respectable, you know," and Sally was such a sweet girl that really it
was quite an interesting case. Mrs. Splurge forthwith began improving
the minds of her girls to the extent of three full annual subscriptions
for Josephine, Adelaide, and Madeline respectively; and that triplet of
fair students, who, separately or conjointly, were at all times
competent to the establishment of a precedent for the graceful
charities of Hendrik good society, handsomely led off with a ten-dollar
investment in "fountain" pens, "cream-laid assembly note,"
motto-wafers, Blessington envelopes "with crest and initial," ivory
tablets, pencil-sharpeners, and ink-erasers.

But all their munificence came to nought. Mr. Paul Wimple's heart was
broken,--as they say of any weary Sysiphus who lies down by his stone
and sleeps forever;--so he died.

Poor little Sally! The first thing she did was to disappoint her
friends, and shock the decencies of Hendrik; for it had been agreed on
all sides that "the poor dear thing would take on dreadfully, or else
fret herself into fits, or perhaps fall into one of them clay-cold,
corpsy swoons, like old Miss Dunks has regular every 'revival.'" But
when they came, with all their tedious commonplaces of a stupid
condolence not wholly innocent of curiosity, Sally thanked them with
dry eyes and prudent lips and quiet nerves, and only said she thought
she should do very well after she had set the house to rights and slept
awhile. The sewing-circle of that week was a coroner's inquest on
Sally's character, and "ungrateful," "cold-blooded," "indecent," "worse
than a hypocrite,"