the public do, for whom that great
city decks itself and prepares its wonders, albeit their existence is
hardly known to its inhabitants.

Meanwhile Jem had chartered the "Laura" for a voyage to San Francisco.
And so, before long, her cargo began to come on board; and she and Tom
and the babies took a mournful farewell, and came back to Tripp's Cove
again, to Moses Marvel's house. And poor Tom thought it looked smaller
than ever, and that he should find it harder than ever to settle down to
being of no use to anybody, and to eat Moses Marvel's bread,--without
house or barn, or bin or oven, or board or bed, even the meanest, of his
own. Poor Tom! and this was the reward of being the first man in Maine
to enter for three years!

And then things went worse and worse. Moses Marvel was as good and as
taciturn as ever. But Moses Marvel's affairs did not run as smoothly as
he liked. Moses held on, upon one year's cutting of lumber, perfectly
determined that lumber should rise, because it ought to; and Moses paid
very high usury on the money he borrowed, because he would hold on.
Moses was set in his way,--like other persons whom you and I know,--and
to this lumber he held and held, till finally the bank would not renew
his notes. No; and they would not discount a cent for him at Bangor, and
Moses came back from a long, taciturn journey he had started on in
search of money, without any money; and with only the certainty that if
he did not mean to have the sheriff sell his lumber, he must sell it for
himself. Nay! he must sell it before the fourth of the next month, and
for cash; and must sell at the very bottom of a long falling market!
Poor Moses Marvel! That operation served to show that he joined all the
Cutts want of luck with the Marvel obstinacy. It was a wretched
twelvemonth, the whole of it; and it made that household, and made Tom
Cutts, more miserable and more.

Then they became anxious about the "Laura," and Jem. She made almost a
clipper voyage to California. She discharged her cargo in perfect order.
Jem made a capital charter for Australia and England, and knew that from
England it would be easy to get a voyage home. He sailed from
California, and then the letters stopped. No! Laura dear, no need in
reading every word of the ship-news in the "Semi-weekly Advertiser;" the
name of your namesake is not there. Eight, nine, ten months have gone
by, and there is no port in Christendom which has seen Jem's face, or
th