Meanwhile, how had the time sped to the nominal head of the Hunt household--the solitary, toiling father and husband? The servants were dismissed when "the family" left town, although Mr. Hunt continued to sleep at home. A peripatetic maid-of-all-work--what the English denominate a charwoman--was engaged to come early every morning to clear up the only room in the establishment that was used before the cashier went out for his breakfast, which he procured at a restaurant pretty far down town. The same quiet coffee-house furnished him with dinner and an early tea, after which last refreshment he was at liberty to pass the evening in whatever manner he liked best. There was nothing in the city worth seeing at this season, even if he had not lost all taste for shows and gayety. Those of his acquaintances who were not absent with their wives and daughters were living like himself, furniture in overalls, carpets covered, apartments closed, with the exception, perhaps, of one bedroom, and had no place in which to receive him if he had been in the habit of visiting, which he was not. He was very tired, moreover, by the time night came on, and as the heat increased and the days grew longer, his strength waned more and more, and his spirits with it. Meekly and uncomplainingly he plodded through his routine of bank duties, so steady and so faithful that his fellow-workers and customers had come to regard him as a reliable fixture, a piece of machinery, whose winding up was self-performed and whose accuracy was infallible. When, therefore, on a sultry August afternoon, he turned to leave his desk at the close of business hours, grew terribly pale and dropped upon the floor in a fit of death-like faintness, there was great consternation, and as much wonder as if no human clock-work had ever given out before, under a like process of exhausting demands. Clumsily, but with the best of intentions, they brought him to his senses, and in half an hour or so he was sufficiently recovered to be taken home. There was a twitching of the lips that might have passed for a sarcastic smile, as he heard the proposal to convey him to his house; but he only gave his street and number, and lay silently back in the carriage, supported by his friends, two of whom insisted upon seeing him safely to his own abode. "Is this the place? Why, it is all shut up!" exclaimed one of these gentlemen as the driver drew up before the dusty steps. Mrs. Hunt's orders were that the entrance to her mansion should present the most desolate air possible during her absence. It had "an aristocratical look in the summer time, when everybody but nobodies was rusticating." Again that singular contortion of the mouth, and the master (?) of the forlorn-looking habitation prepared to descend, fumbling in his pocket for his pass-key. "I am obliged to you, gentlemen, for your great kindness, and will--not--trouble--you--longer."