“My health is perfectly good, Edith.”

But Edith shook her head—­

“Not so very good.  You look paler, and are much thinner than you were a year ago.  A little over-exertion throws your system off of its balance; and then you are sick.”

“I will be very careful of myself,” replied Claire.  “If, after a few weeks, the extra labour is found to be too severe, I can give up the place.  Nothing like trying, you know, dear.”

Still, Edith was not satisfied.  Very strongly she urged her husband not to increase his labour in the degree contemplated.

“Let us try if we can reduce our expenses by a closer economy.  It is better to deny ourselves things not necessary to health, than to injure health by extra labour.”

She urged this view, however, in vain.  Claire could not, without at least a trial of his strength, decline the important offer which had been made to him.  And so, after a consultation with Mr. Melleville, he entered upon his new employment, leaving his wife to spend the hours of his absence alone.  Not idly were those hours spent.  What she had at first proposed to do, she now began to execute.  Without saying any thing to her husband, she had procured, from a friend who kept a fancy-store, and who took in from the ladies a great deal of work, some fine sewing; and with this she was busily occupied until his return, which did not take place on the first night until near eleven o’clock.

There was a slight drawback in the pleasure both felt in meeting at this late hour—­the drawback of weariness.  Yet their hearts were tranquil and elevated in the consciousness that they were denying self for the good of another—­and that one most tenderly beloved.  Again the way had become plain before them; and if strength only were given to bear their increased burdens, they would move on with even lighter footsteps than before.

And now, after having lingered thus long with the humble clerk, let us turn to the rich merchant; for Jasper has become a man of extensive possessions.  Wealth flowed in upon him with extraordinary rapidity—­not in the regular course of trade, overreaching and unscrupulous as he was in dealing, but through what are called fortunate speculations.  How he made his first hundred thousand dollars—­the basis of his present very large fortune—­was not clearly understood, though sundry vague rumours on the subject were afloat, none of them, however, very near the truth, except in the admission that a fraud on somebody had been committed.  But let us introduce Mr. Jasper.

On the night that Claire entered upon his duties as clerk in the auction store, and about the same hour that his duties began, Mr. Jasper, who was walking restlessly the floor of his richly furnished parlours, his mind busy with some large money-making scheme, yet fretted by a recent disappointment, found himself suddenly in the presence of, to him, a well-known individual, whose ring at the door he had not observed.