Merciless creditors have driven Marston from that home of so many happy and hospitable associations, to seek shelter in the obscure and humble chamber of a wretched building in the outskirts of the city.  Fortune can afford him but a small cot, two or three broken chairs, an ordinary deal table, a large chest, which stands near the fire-place, and a dressing-stand, for furniture.  Here, obscured from the society he had so long mingled with, he spends most of his time, seldom venturing in public lest he may encounter those indomitable gentlemen who would seem to love the following misfortune into its last stage of distress.  His worst enemy, however, is that source of his misfortunes he cannot disclose; over it hangs the mystery he must not solve!  It enshrines him with guilt before public opinion; by it his integrity lies dead; it is that which gives to mother rumour the weapons with which to wield her keenest slanders.

Having seized Marston’s real estate, Graspum had no scruples about swearing to the equity of his claim; nor were any of the creditors willing to challenge an investigation; and thus, through fear of such a formidable abettor, Marston laboured under the strongest, and perhaps the most unjust imputations.  But there was no limit to Graspum’s mercenary proceedings; for beyond involving Marston through Lorenzo, he had secretly purchased many claims of the creditors, and secured his money by a dexterous movement, with which he reduced the innocent children to slavery.

Reports have spread among the professedly knowing that Marston can never have made away with all his property in so few years.  And the manner being so invisible, the charge becomes stronger.  Thus, labouring between the pain of misfortune and the want of means to resent suspicion, his cheerless chamber is all he can now call his home.  But he has two good friends left-Franconia, and the old negro Bob.  Franconia has procured a municipal badge for Daddy; and, through it (disguised) he seeks and obtains work at stowing cotton on the wharfs.  His earnings are small, but his soul is large, and embued with attachment for his old master, with whom he will share them.  Day by day the old slave seems to share the feelings of his master,—­to exhibit a solicitous concern for his comfort.  Earning his dollars and twenty-five cents a day, he will return when the week has ended, full of exultation, spread out his earnings with childlike simplicity, take thirty cents a day for himself, and slip the remainder into Marston’s pocket.  How happy he seems, as he watches the changes of Marston’s countenance, and restrains the gushing forth of his feelings!