k came down with a crash, and banks were
shaky. Hope Mills were closed for a month to make some repairs, as
business was rather slow just now.

There was a great quaking in real estate as well. The large
property-owners held on stiffly: times would improve; land was worth
more to-day than ever, because every year there were more people, and
they required more houses, and the thing would somehow right itself.

Jack had taken his two feminines off to a great roomy farmhouse, where
they had a horse at their command. Sylvie and Miss Barry were summering
at the White Mountains. Dr. Maverick found a good deal of sickness among
the poorer classes, low fevers and various troubles, that he knew well
enough came from insufficient diet. But what was to be done? There was
so little work, so much lost time, the inexorable rent, and the
importunate grocer's bill. Up on Hope Terrace the luscious grapes fell
to the ground, and were swept up as so much litter; the fresh, lovely
vegetables passed their prime unheeded, and were tossed in the
garbage-pit.

September came in hot and sultry. Hope Mills started, but many another
place did not open. There was a strange, deathly-quiet undercurrent,
like the awful calm before a thunder-shower. Wages took another tumble,
and now no one had the courage to make much of a fight.

The second week in October there came an appalling crash. Yerbury Bank
closed its doors one morning,--the old bank that had weathered many a
gale; that was considered as safe and stanch as the rock of Gibraltar
itself; that held in trust the savings of widows and orphans, the
balance of smaller business-men who would be ruined: indeed, it would
almost ruin Yerbury itself.

There was the greatest consternation. People flew up the street,
bank-book in hand; but the dumb doors seemed only to give back a
pitiless glance to entreaties. What was it? What had happened? "Every
penny I had in the world was in it," groaned one; and the saddening
refrain was repeated over and over, sometimes with tears, at others with
curses.

The old officers of Yerbury Bank had been men of the highest integrity.
Some were dead; some had been pushed aside by the new, fast men who
laughed at past methods, as if honor, honesty, and truth were virtues
easily outgrown. Among these were the Eastmans. George was considered
shrewd and far-sighted, and for two years had been one of the directors,
as well as Horace. They paid the highest rate of intere