When the mind has been shaken up from the bottom as mine was, a long time must elapse after the cause of the agitation has subsided, before a calm comes again; I felt it so. The tempest within me was past, and the winter over and gone when I returned with my family to New York; but the dark billows of unsettled thought still rolled heavily, and reason, like the helm of the mariner in the swell which follows the storm, proved often ineffectual to guide me in the course I was desirous to steer.

My intention, as I have intimated, was to resume my seed-store in the old place; but the house had been hired for auction-rooms, and was not to be had. After looking about for a whole day, I returned, wearied and dejected, to my family in the evening, without having seen any one place that would suit; a day at this time was precious to my light and lank purse, and it was with unspeakable sadness of heart I was obliged to tell my patient wife how fruitless my search had been.

She was at no time one of those women who are obtrusive of their counsels, nor ever a Job's comforter, to point out how matters might have been better, had her husband turned to the left hand instead of the right; but a quiet, earnest practitioner of household thrift, doing her in-door part to the best of her ability. On this occasion, however, she came out of her usual habitude, and seeing me so greatly downcast, remonstrated with me.

While she was speaking, her uncle, my old friend Zerobabel L. Hoskins, came most unexpectedly to see us. I have told the courteous reader how coldly and bluntly he had rebuffed my application for the small loan; I need hardly say he was in consequence one whom I was not likely soon to have solicited again.