If Mr. Bullion had been ten times the Shylock he was, he could not have disregarded the last injunction of Fletcher.  The turn in the market enabled him to make advantageous sales of his stocks, and in less than a week he resumed payment.  The first thing he did was to pay over to trustees the notes he had given Fletcher, thereby securing the widow at least a decent support.  He also sent Danforth & Co. the ten thousand dollars for which their clerk had paid such a terrible forfeiture.  After discharging all his obligations, there was still an ample margin left,—­a large fortune, in fact.  Mr. Bullion could now retire with comfort,—­could look forward to many years; so he flattered himself.  His will was made, his children provided for; and some unsettled accounts, not remembered by any save himself and the recording angel, were adjusted as well as the lapse of time would allow.  So he thought of purchasing a country-house for the next season, and of giving the rest of his days to the enjoyment of life.

But it was not so to be.  A swift and sudden stroke smote him down.  In the dead of night, and alone, he met the angel for whose summons all of us are waiting, and went his way without a struggle.  The morning sun, as its rays shot in between the blinds, lighted the seamed and careworn face of an old man, resting as in a serene, dreamless sleep.

* * * * *

Mr. Tonsor found, on consulting the best legal authorities, that he could not maintain his claim upon the notes he had received of Sandford; and, rather than subject himself to the expense of a lawsuit in which he was certain to be beaten, he relinquished them to Monroe, and filed his claim for the money against Sandford’s estate.  Ten per cent. was the amount of the dividend he received; the remainder was charged to Profit and Loss,—­Experience being duly credited with the same amount.

* * * * *

It was with the greatest difficulty that the judicious Easelmann prevented his friend from making a second visit in the evening of the same day.  Greenleaf had come to a full conviction, in his own mind, that his difference with Alice ought to be settled, and he could not conceive that it might take time to bring her to the same conclusion.  Some people adapt themselves to circumstances instantly; the aversion of one hour becomes the delight of the next; but those who are guided by reasoning, especially where there is a shade of resentment,—­who are fortified by pride of opinion, and by the idea of consistent self-respect,—­such persons are slow to change a settled conviction; the course of feeling is too powerful and too constant to be arrested and turned backward.  Easelmann thought—­and perhaps rightly—­that Alice needed only time to become accustomed to the new view of the case; and he believed that any precipitation might be fatal to his friend’s hopes.

“Give her the opportunity to think about it,” he said; “if she loves you, depend upon it, the wind will change with her.  Due east to-day, according to all you have told me; and the violets won’t blossom till the sun comes out of the sullen gray cloud and the south wind breathes on them.—­The very contact with a lover, you see, makes me poetical.”