"And very well you carried out the joke, Amos," said old Van Quintem. "You wouldn't make a bad actor." "Rather better actor than carpenter, I guess," said Mr. Frump. "Perhaps so," said old Van Quintem; "but a financier of your talent needn't act, or mend railings, for a living. I should like to know, now, how you made your money in California. Nine out of ten who go there, come back poorer than they went." "'Tisn't best to ask too many questions of a returned Californian," answered Amos, in perfect good humor. "Nor of anybody else, about business matters. You are right," added old Van Quintem. "I say to wifey, and to all my friends, 'Let bygones be bygones. Take me as you find me, and I'll take you as I find you; and we'll ax no questions on either side.'" "Dear Amos, you are the best of husbands!" said Mrs. Frump, looking fondly in his face. Mr. Frump improved as he was looked at. "Let bygones be bygones' is a very good rule," said old Van Quintem. "Mr. Frump," said Matthew, unable longer to repress the compliment, "you have a wonderful amount of good sense!" "I told you," was the laughing reply, "that 'Amos was sensible in some things.'" BOOK THIRTEENTH THE STRANGE LADY. CHAPTER I. A STORY OF THE PAST. Another year slipped away, and wrought many changes among the inhabitants of the block. Some of them had passed from stately mansions to those narrow houses which are appointed for all the living. Others had wedded, and moved to other blocks which were to be their future homes--till the 1st of the following May. Some of them had grown rich by quick speculations, and got into the choicest society by the simple manoeuvre of taking a four-story brownstone front in the avenue which formed the eastern boundary of the block. Others had attained to poverty by the same process, and had migrated to cheaper lodgings in blocks remote, expecting that a lucky turn of Fortune's wheel would bring them back to fashionable life next year, as it most likely would. The principal personages of this history had been radically affected by this lapse of time--as will hereafter be shown--with the single exception of Marcus Wilkeson. For one year, life had passed tranquilly, uneventfully. He had sought, and found, in his dear books, a panacea for that sickness of the heart which sometimes attacked him in his lonelier hours. At such, times, he would repeat to himself these expressive lines of an old poet: This books can do; nor this alone; they give New views of life, and teach us how to live; The grieved they soothe, the stubborn they chastise; Fools they admonish, and confirm the wise. Their aid they yield to all; they never shun The man of sorrow, or the wretch undone. Unlike the hard, the selfish, and the proud, They fly not sullen from the suppliant crowd, Nor tell to various people various things, But show to subjects what they show to kings.