“For me?” said Mr. Middleton, turning it over, and placing his finger upon the large, red seal. “I did not expect any letters just now. Read it, wife.”
Mrs. Middleton, who had been adjusting her spectacles, eagerly seized the mysterious letter, and carefully cutting it open, read the signature aloud. “Henry Willetson.”
“I don’t know such a person,” said the old man, leaning forward to catch every word. “Go on, Hannah.”
The letter was a brief one; and the old lady glanced her eye over it before she began—but that glance was sufficient to tell the whole story. There it was, written down in few but fearful characters; and suddenly throwing the paper upon the table, she exclaimed, “Merciful Father! we are ruined! All swept away! Oh! Samuel, Samuel, what shall we do in our old age? All gone, all gone!”
“Tell me what it is. Let me know the whole truth,” said the old man, groping his way to the table, and stretching his hand over it to find the letter. “Tell me what has happened, Hannah—I can bear it.”
“All gone, all gone!” murmured poor Mrs. Middleton, as if deprived of the power to say more.
“What is gone? Tell me, Hannah?” said the agitated old man. “Oh, this awful blindness! Sophy, where are you? Do you read it for me.”
Pale and trembling, Sophy obeyed. The letter was from the agent of a mercantile house in New York, in which Mr. Middleton had been persuaded to invest the bulk of his small property, announcing the entire failure of the concern, which would not, in all probability, at the winding up of its affairs, pay five cents on the dollar; and thus the fruits of patient industry, during the best years of Samuel Middleton’s life, were swept away by the reckless speculation of others, and nothing remained to him, save the pretty cottage in which he lived, and the good name which no dishonest act had ever tarnished.
Had the old man been in the possession of his eye-sight, the blow had not, perhaps, fallen so heavily; but unable by personal exertion of any kind to repair the mischief, with no children to lean upon, his bark seemed stranded among the breakers, and Samuel Middleton bowed his head upon his hands, and sought for strength, in this hour of darkness, from the source whence alone he felt certain of obtaining it. There was silence for a few moments in the little apartment, disturbed only by the stifled sobs of poor Sophy, and the moans of Mrs. Middleton, as she rocked backward and forward in her arm-chair, till the old man spoke.
“We have received good at the hand of the Lord, and shall we not receive evil?” he said. “Hannah, this is a sore trial—but it comes from God, and we must submit. If He sends poverty upon us in our old days, depend upon it, He will send strength to bear it. The trouble and the comfort always seem to go hand-in-hand. Let us be thankful it is no worse.”