guests arrived on my account, perhaps.

It happened when daylight was growing shorter, and the red heat of the
earth was gone, and the snow-line of distant granite peaks had crept
already lower, and the chattering birds that spent their summer in our
band of oak-trees were beginning to find their food get short, and to
prime swift wings for the lowland; and I, having never felt bitter cold,
was trembling at what I heard of it. For now it was clear that I had no
choice but to stay where I was for the present, and be truly thankful to
God and man for having the chance of doing so. For the little relics
of my affairs--so far as I had any--had taken much time in arrangement,
perhaps because it was so hard to find them. I knew nothing, except
about my own little common wardrobe, and could give no information about
the contents of my father's packages. But these, by dint of perseverance
on the part of Ephraim (who was very keen about all rights), had mainly
been recovered, and Mr. Gundry had done the best that could be done
concerning them. Whatever seemed of a private nature, or likely to prove
important, had been brought home to Blue River Mills; the rest had been
sold, and had fetched large prices, unless Mr. Gundry enlarged them.

He more than enlarged, he multiplied them, as I found out long
afterward, to make me think myself rich and grand, while a beggar upon
his bounty. I had never been accustomed to think of money, and felt
some little contempt for it--not, indeed, a lofty hatred, but a careless
wonder why it seemed to be always thought of. It was one of the last
things I ever thought of; and those who were waiting for it were--until
I got used to them--obliged in self-duty to remind me.

This, however, was not my fault. I never dreamed of wronging them. But
I had earned no practical knowledge of the great world any where, much
though I had wandered about, according to vague recollections. The duty
of paying had never been mine; that important part had been done for me.
And my father had such a horror always of any growth of avarice that he
never gave me sixpence.

And now, when I heard upon every side continual talk of money, from Suan
Isco upward, I thought at first that the New World must be different
from the Old one, and that the gold mines in the neighborhood must have
made them full of it; and once or twice I asked Uncle Sam; but he only
nodded his head, and said that it was the practice every where. And