It was a morning in early May.

Knots of men were standing on the corners of Wall and Pearl streets, each discussing in animated tones some question of finance or trade.

Men with hurried steps and curious faces passed to and fro, threading their way through the pressing throng, as if the nation was in peril and they were on a mission to save it.

And yet it was only an expression of that eagerness which our people display in their haste to despatch some object in the ordinary business routine of the day.
It was on this morning that a woman of small and compact figure, dressed in plain green silk, a red India shawl, and a large, odd-shaped straw bonnet, called a "poke" in those days, on her head, and trimmed inside with a profusion of artificial flowers, the whole giving her an air of extreme quaintness, was seen looking up doubtingly at the door opening to the stairs at the top of which Topman and Gusher had their counting-rooms.

She had the appearance of a woman in good circumstances, just from the country, where her style of dress might have been in fashion at that day.