I could not bear, of course, to profit by the accident, and returned to offer restitution.

The house was in a bustle; the neighbours (all stock-gamblers themselves) had crowded to condole; and Mrs.Speedy sat with streaming tears, the centre of a sympathetic group.

"For fifteen year I've been at ut," she was lamenting, as I entered, "and grudging the babes the very milk, more shame to me! to pay their dhirty assessments.

And now, my dears, I should be a lady, and driving in my coach, if all had their rights; and a sorrow on that man Dodd! As soon as I set eyes on him, I seen the divil was in the house." It was upon these words that I made my entrance, which was therefore dramatic enough, though nothing to what followed.

For when it appeared that I was come to restore the lost fortune, and when Mrs.Speedy (after copiously weeping on my bosom) had refused the restitution, and when Mr.Speedy (summoned to that end from a camp of the Grand Army of the Republic) had added his refusal, and when I had insisted, and they had insisted, and the neighbours had applauded and supported each of us in turn; and when at last it was agreed we were to hold the stock together, and share the proceeds in three parts--one for me, one for Mr.Speedy, and one for his spouse--I will leave you to conceive the enthusiasm that reigned in that small, bare apartment, with the sewing-machine in the one corner, and the babes asleep in the other, and pictures of Garfield and the Battle of Gettysburg on the yellow walls.