Chapter 38

PREPARATION was at once made for the proposed removal. Mr. Walker went back to the city, and the new owner of the cottage, Mr. Willet, set carpenters and painters at work to make certain additions which he thought needful to secure the comfort of his tenants, and to put every thing in the most thorough repair. Even against the remonstrance of Mr. Markland, who saw that his generous-minded neighbour was providing for his family a house worth almost double the rent that was to be paid, he carried out all his projected improvements.

"You will embarrass me with a sense of obligation," said Mr. Markland, in seeking to turn him from a certain purpose regarding the cottage.

"Do not say so," answered Mr. Willet; "I am only offering inducements for you to remain with us. If obligation should rest anywhere, it will be on our side. I make these improvements because the house is now my own property, and would be defective, to my mind, without them. Pray, don't let your thoughts dwell on these things."

Thus he strove to dissipate the feeling of obligation that began to rest on the mind of his unfortunate neighbour, while he carried out his purpose. In due time, under the assignment which had been made, Woodbine Lodge and a large part of the elegant and costly furniture contained in the mansion, were sold, and the ownership passed into other hands. With a meagre remnant of their household goods, the family retired to a humbler house. Some pitied, and stood at a distance; some felt a selfish pleasure in their fall; and some, who had courted them in their days of prosperity, were among the foremost to speak evil against them. But there were a few, and they the choicest spirits of the neighbourhood, who only drew nearer to these their friends in misfortune. Among them was Mr. Allison, one of those wise old men whose minds grow not dim with advancing years. He had passed through many trying vicissitudes, had suffered, and come up from the ordeal purer than when the fire laid hold upon the dross of nature.

A wise monitor had he been in Markland's brighter days, and now he drew near as a comforter. There is strength in true words kindly spoken. How often was this proved by Mr. and Mrs. Markland, as their venerable friend unlocked for them treasures of wisdom!

The little parlour at "Lawn Cottage," the name of their new home, soon became the scene of frequent reunions among choice spirits, whose aspirations went higher and deeper than the external and visible. In closing around Mr. Markland, they seemed to shut him out, as it were, from the old world in which he had hoped, and suffered, and struggled so vainly; and to open before his purer vision a world of higher beauty. In this world were riches for the toiler, and honour for the noble--riches and honour far more to be desired than the gems and gold of earth or its empty tributes of praise.

A few months of this