ble and expensive
boarding-school. Nothing happened to impair her friendship with Sylvie
Barry, though the two girls were as dissimilar in many respects as Jack
and Fred, but they both stood on the same social plane.

Meanwhile matters at Yerbury prospered mightily. The town was quite
bright at night with the glow from factory-windows, and people seemed
always hurrying to and fro. New shops and stores were started, new
streets were laid out, rows of houses built in town, and out on the edge
pretty and ugly suburban villas. Property began to increase everywhere.

Gertrude and her husband George Eastman came back to Yerbury in about
five months. He had begun his career as clerk in a bank, and joined his
brother afterward as an army-contractor. From thence they had branched
into general speculating, and were both considered rich men. Mr. Minor
owned a Fifth-avenue palace, and Mrs. Minor never came to Yerbury
without her maid. Mrs. Eastman could not have the palace in town, so she
decided to have a handsome summer residence at Yerbury, and spend her
winters at different hotels. Mr. Eastman thought he saw a grand opening
just in this pretty spot. Property was ridiculously low. Here were farms
and farms that might as well be cut up into building-lots, and turned
into cities. Here was the river-front, here were railroads: why not have
twice or thrice as many shops? why not call in the people from far and
wide, and make Yerbury a place of note? Time had been when our fathers
were content to dream and doze, but now it behooved everybody to be up
and stirring. In the new race the laggards would fall far behind.

Mr. Eastman set the example by purchasing one large tract, and laying
out streets. Then uprose houses as if by magic. Modern improvements,
water, gas, bath, butler's pantries, and dumb-waiters; and the houses
offered so cheaply that the solid, slow-going, honest business-men
wondered how it could be done. The places had a wonderfully seductive
look, and were sought after eagerly.

There was a peculiar interest in all this to Jack. When one day somebody
said,--

"Downer's property south of the bridge has gone for thirty thousand
dollars. Five years ago he'd been glad to have taken ten for it. Crater
and Harmon are going to build a big factory,"--Jack's heart went up with
a bound.

He still wanted to get away from Yerbury. He began to feel that he had
made a mistake with his life, and was anxious to rectify it if poss