our many cares make you seem almost an old man."

"I am glad to have been able to give my youth to my country," he
answered. Then, turning to Louis di Vernon: "Do not think my wife too
bitter? She has had sore trials," and he gently patted her work-worn
hand. "I know it is not for herself she grieves, but she is troubled
for me and for our little ones. And, in truth, things have grown dark
for us of late. My business has suffered during the war and I was
obliged to neglect it while I attended to affairs of state. And now
that peace has come at last, I find that my old good fortune has
deserted me."

"If you had only kept the remnant of your fortune," sighed his wife,
"the sixty-four thousand dollars you lent to Mr. Morris for his bank
would have tided us over these evil times."

"But I could not allow the National Bank to fail," protested Salomon.
"Somehow," turning to his guest, "I have grown like the old
philosopher of my people who was so unfortunate that he once declared
that if he took to making shoes everyone would go barefoot, if he
became a shroud maker, no one would die." He laughed softly, then grew
suddenly grave. "The merchants to whom I have extended credit have
failed. There have been losses at sea--" he shrugged, and became
silent, his eyes grown strangely large in his thin white face, seeming
to look into the far future. "Mr. Madison and my other friends will
not forget me," he said slowly, "and my country in whose keeping I may
have to leave my wife and infant children before long, will be glad to
repay her debt and care for them." A strange look of peace swept over
his tired face; it was well that his dimming eyes could not see the
long years during which his country would forget to be grateful and to
repay.

A feeling half of pity, half of shame filled the young man's heart.
"I--I am sorry," he stammered.

"You need not pity me." Salomon smiled his old gentle smile. "I have
been given a chance to serve the cause of freedom with my fortune; I
have been of service to my own people, too, the Hebrews of
Philadelphia, and it gladdens my heart to believe that my children's
children will worship the God of our fathers here in this place in the
synagogue I have helped to build. I do not think my life has been such
a very great failure after all," he ended, naively. "And it is good to
know that what I have done has borne fruit. That is why your coming
here tonight to thank me has heartened me more than n