A most cruel experience was thine! When the disastrous intelligence was made known to Aunt Grace, that rather peculiar and excitable personage did not fail to say that it was nothing more than she had expected; that she had seen the storm coming, long and long ago, and had long and long ago lifted, without avail, a voice of warning.

As for Mr.Lyon, he received a double share of execration--ending with the oft-repeated remark, that she had felt his shadow when he first came among them, and that she knew he must be a bad man.

The ebullition subsided, in due time, and then the really good-hearted spinster gave her whole thought and active energy to the new work that was before them.
After the fierce conflict endured by Mr.Markland, ending wellnigh fatally, a calmness of spirit succeeded.

With him, the worst was over; and now, he bowed himself, almost humbly, amid the ruins of his shattered fortunes, and, with a heavy heart, began to reconstruct a home, into which his beloved ones might find shelter.
Any time within the preceding five or six years, an intimation on his part that he wished to enter business again would have opened the most advantageous connections.

It was different now.