Roxy Hastings — page 204: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ROXY HASTINGS. 195 CHAPTER XXXVITI. “NOT EQUAL TO THE TASK.” Winter had passed away, and spring with its birds and blossoms began to appear. Let us see what were the changes which this short lapse of time had wrought. Bachelor Burr had married the ‘‘charming widow” who had so effectually consoled him in his distress, and with his buxom bride and her four children, had taken posses- sion of the grand house which had so much embarrassed him, but of which he was henceforth to call himself mas- ter ‘‘nevermore.” Holden, who had “gone down” in December, with a crash which shook the commercial world, struggled on until late in the winter in the futile attempt to save some- thing out of the wreck of his fortune. But his creditors, who were indignant and unrelenting, said that he ought to have failed five years before, all of which time he had been insolvent, instead of living extravagantly at their expense. His assets, aside from some hundreds of thou- sands of bad Southern debts, consisted of his stock of goods only, and his house and furniture, all of which would not pay quite one-fifth of his indebtedness. It all went, save afew hundreds legally exempt, for al- though he made a late effort to save his house by an an- tedated deed to his wife, a remorseless attorney pounced upon it and compelled its relinquishment, even:on the tes- timony of the poor woman herself. Holden, whose pride had been so extreme, was thor- oughly humbled. He took a small house; he obtained some small collecting agency; he shunned his late ac- quaintances, and began to recognize some of older date, who had preceded him by a few years into the valley of humiliation. | It may be thought that the penalties of poverty fell still heavier upon his family, but Mrs. Holden’s happiness had been crushed by a severer blow, to which the loss of wealth could add but little. | “Tf T could have Lucy back,” she would say, ‘I should have nothing to regret. Nay, I would bless the hand which had shattered our fortune if, in exchange for it, we could receive our dear murdered child.” Comichboo (@) cS (Elo)