"It is a nice, genteel trade, too. Now we will take a house, and father will work at his trade, and mother will do the house-work, and I will work at my trade, and we shall live so happy."
"So we shall. But, dear me, why don't she tell what it is?"
"So she will if you let me alone. A girl must have her own way to tell it; probably she will do that in a postscript."
"Well, read on. I am so impatient."
"Perhaps you would like to know what my trade is?"
"Why to be sure we should. Why don't she tell?"
"So I will tell you. I am a stock-maker—those things the gentlemen wear round their necks. And it is very curious how I learned the trade. A lady from New York—oh, she is a lady!—came up here on a visit, and for work she brought along some stocks to make. She lives in New York. I believe she keeps a few boarders, and makes stocks. She is a widow lady, quite young, and very pretty, only she is in bad health; she has no family, only her uncle, who is an old bachelor—a nice old gentleman, who has adopted her as his daughter, and is going to give her all he has when he dies. She has no father and mother, as I have, and no brothers and sisters; nobody to love but the old uncle—he does love her, so do I. I did not at first. I was afraid of her. I thought she was some grand city lady; and she used to sit and sew in her room, only when her uncle—Papa she calls him, and he calls her daughter—'Athalia, daughter,' so sweet; is it not a sweet name? Her name is Athalia Morgan—"
"Morgan, Morgan—Athalia Morgan. I will warrant it is she. Don't you remember, wife, that old Morgan, the great shipping merchant? his son married a sewing girl, and his sister married George Wendall."
"Oh, oh, how singular! It was she that was talking when Maggie took me into the temperance meeting that night, telling how her husband died. And now Maggie has met with another of the family. And her husband must be dead too."
"Yes, he died just as miserable a death as Wendall. Let us read on and see what of his wife. I hope he did not drag her down with him as I did mine."