"All that may be true, but the difficulty of a duty is not a valid excuse for its non performance." "My dear cousin it is not my role to be a reformer. I take things as I find them and drift along the tide of circumstances." "And is that your highest ideal of life? Why Jeanette such a life is not worth living." "Whether it is or not, I am living it and I rather enjoy it. Your vexing problems of life never disturb me. I do not think I am called to turn this great world 'right side up with care,' and so I float along singing as I go, "I'd be a butterfly born in a bower Kissing every rose that is pleasant and sweet, I'd never languish for wealth or for power I'd never sigh to have slaves at my feet." "Such a life would never suit me, life must mean to me more than ease, luxury and indulgence, it must mean aspiration and consecration, endeavor and achievement." "Well, Belle, should we live twenty years longer, I would like to meet you and see by comparing notes which of us shall have gathered the most sunshine or shadow from life." "Yes Jeanette we will meet in less than twenty years, but before then your glad light eyes will be dim with tears, and the easy path you have striven to walk will be thickly strewn with thorn; and whether you deserve it or not, life will have for you a mournful earnestness, but notwithstanding all your frivolity and flippancy there is fine gold in your character, which the fire of affliction only will reveal." Chapter III [Text missing.] Chapter IV "How is business?" "Very dull, I am losing terribly." "Any prospect of times brightening?" "I don't see my way out clear; but I hope there will be a change for the better. Confidence has been greatly shaken, men of[?] business have grown exceedingly timid about investing and there is a general depression in every department of trade and business." "Now Paul will you listen to reason and common sense? I have a proposition to make. I am about to embark in a profitable business, and I know that it will pay better than anything else I could undertake in these times. Men will buy liquor if they have not got money for other things. I am going to open a first class saloon, and club-house, on M. Street, and if you will join with me we can make a splendid thing of it. Why just see how well off Joe Harden is since he set up in the business; and what airs he does put on! I know when he was not worth fifty dollars, and kept a little low groggery on the corner of L. and S. Streets, but he is out of that now--keeps a first class _Cafe_, and owns a block of houses. Now Paul, here is a splendid chance for you; business is dull, and now accept this opening. Of course I mean to keep a first class saloon. I don't intend to tolerate loafing, or disorderly conduct, or to sell to drunken men. In fact, I shall put up my scale of prices so that you need fear no annoyance from rough, low, boisterous men who don't know how to behave themselves. What say you, Paul?"