I had left her engaged over accounts with
Mr. Bainrothe, having withdrawn rather than spend a long, lonely evening
in the parlor, somewhat indisposed as I felt.
I rose from my bed and went to her precipitately. I found her indulging
in a passionate burst of grief, almost choking with sobs of hysterical
indignation.
"All gone--all gone!" she exclaimed, wildly, as I entered the room.
"Your estate--mine--Mabel's--all swept away with one fell swoop, Miriam!
The Bank of Pennsylvania has failed; it is discovered that Mr. Biddle
has proved defaulter, and we are ruined!"
"I will never believe it, Evelyn!" I exclaimed, vehemently, "until he
tells me so with his own lips. This is one of Mr. Bainrothe's fictions;
he is trying to wake us up a little, that is all. Mr. Biddle is the
Bayard of bankers--'_sans peur et sans reproche_.' As to that bank, did
not my father believe it to be as indestructible as the United States,
the government itself? Nay, did not Bainrothe himself do all he could to
convince him of it, and induce him to invest in its stocks? The wily fox
had his motive, no doubt, but it surely could not have been our ruin!
Our own fortunes are too intimately involved in his prosperity for this.
Besides, why have not the newspapers told us of this?"
All this time Evelyn was sobbing convulsively, and what I have told
continuously here was said by me in a far more fragmentary way between
her bursts of grief.
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