"Why not? Are we any better than you were?"
"No. But nowadays no young folks are contented to do as we did."
"Then, papa, you are going to see a new thing upon the earth, for Harry and I am going to be pattern folks for being rational and contented. We are going to start out on a new tack and bring in the golden age. But, bless me! there's Aunt Maria coming down the street! Now, Harry, comes the tug of war. I am going now to emancipate mamma and proclaim the new order of things," and out she flitted.
"Mr. Henderson," said Mr. Van Arsdel, when she had gone, "I think it is about certain that I am to look on you as a future member of our family. I'll be fair with you, that you may take steps with your eyes open. My daughters are supposed to be heiresses, but, as things are tending, in a very short time I may be put back to where I started in life and have all to begin over. My girls will have nothing. I see such a crisis impending and I have no power to help it."
"My dear sir," said I, "while I shall be sorry for your trouble, and hope it may not come, I shall be only too glad to prove my devotion to Eva."
"It is evident," said Mr. Arsdel, "that her heart is set on you, and, after all, the only true comfort is in having the one you want. I myself never cared for fashion, Mr. Henderson, nor parties, nor any of this kind of fuss and show the women think so much of; and I believe that Eva is a little like me. I like to go back to the old place in summer and eat huckleberries and milk, and see the cows come home from pasture, and sit in father's old arm-chair. It wouldn't take so much running and scheming and hard thinking and care to live, if folks were all of my mind. Why, up in New Hampshire where I came from, there's scarcely ever an estate administered upon that figures up more than five thousand dollars, and yet they all live well—have nice houses, nice tables, give money in charity, and make a good thing of life."
There was something really quite pathetic in this burst of confidence from the worthy man. Perhaps I was the first one to whom he had confessed the secret apprehensions with which he was struggling.
"You see, Mr. Henderson, you never can tell about investments. Stocks that seem to stand as firm as the foundations of the earth, that the very oldest and shrewdest and longest-headed put into, run down and depreciate—and when they get running you can't draw out, you see. Now I advanced capital for the new Lightning Line Railroad to the amount of two hundred thousand, and pledged my Guatemala stock for the money, and then arose this combination against the Guatemala stock, and it has fallen to a fourth of its value in six months, and it takes heavy rowing—heavy. I'd a great deal rather be in father's old place, with an estate of five thousand dollars, and read my newspaper in peace, than to have all I have with the misery of managing it. I may work out and I may not."