This, of course, was an extreme opinion, but I remember serious men
among my acquaintances who, in discussing the signs of the times,
adopted a very similar tone. It was no doubt the common opinion of
thoughtful men that society was approaching a critical period which
might result in great changes. The labor troubles, their causes,
course, and cure, took lead of all other topics in the public prints,
and in serious conversation.

The nervous tension of the public mind could not have been more
strikingly illustrated than it was by the alarm resulting from the
talk of a small band of men who called themselves anarchists, and
proposed to terrify the American people into adopting their ideas by
threats of violence, as if a mighty nation which had but just put down
a rebellion of half its own numbers, in order to maintain its
political system, were likely to adopt a new social system out of
fear.

As one of the wealthy, with a large stake in the existing order of
things, I naturally shared the apprehensions of my class. The
particular grievance I had against the working classes at the time of
which I write, on account of the effect of their strikes in postponing
my wedded bliss, no doubt lent a special animosity to my feeling
toward them.

CHAPTER II.

The thirtieth day of May, 1887, fell on a Monday. It was one of the
annual holidays of the nation in the latter third of the nineteenth
century, being set apart under the name of Decoration Day, for doing
honor to the memory of the soldiers of the North who took part in the
war for the preservation of the union of the States. The survivors of
the war, escorted by military and civic processions and bands of
music, were wont on this occasion to visit the cemeteries and lay
wreaths of flowers upon the graves of their dead comrades, the
ceremony being a very solemn and touching one. The eldest brother of
Edith Bartlett had fallen in the war, and on Decoration Day the family
was in the habit of making a visit to Mount Auburn, where he lay.

I had asked permission to make one of the party, and, on our return to
the city at nightfall, remained to dine with the family of my
betrothed. In the drawing-room, after dinner, I picked up an evening
paper and read of a fresh strike in the building trades, which would
probably still further delay the completion of my unlucky house. I
remember distinctly how exasperated I was at this, and the
objurgations, as forcible as the pr