It was like the task of the pioneer settler in
the wilderness, who must uproot trees, drain swamps, burn briers and
brambles, exterminate hurtful beasts, and prepare the soil for the
reception of the seeds that are to produce the future harvest. We leave
him with his charge, while we attend to other personages of our story.
Mr. Sandford and his sister, upon leaving their house, took lodgings,
and then began to cast about them for the means of support. The money on
which he had relied was gone. His credit was utterly destroyed, and he
had no hope of being reinstated in his former position. The only way
he could possibly be useful in the street was by becoming a curbstone
broker, a go-between, trusted by neither borrower nor lender, and
earning a precarious livelihood by commissions. Even in that position
he felt that he should labor under disadvantages, for he knew that his
course had been universally condemned. It was a matter of every-day
experience for him to meet old acquaintances who looked over him, or
across the street, or in at shop-windows, to avoid recognition. And the
half-patronizing, half-contemptuous nods he did receive were far worse
to bear than downright cuts.
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