There was a little pang at the thought of the privations in possible store for the family through him, but he had resolved to make the best of circumstances and be brave as possible. Once more he looked over the scene, but there were only dim black shadows in the starlight, and he went down toward the twinkling lights of the city below. CHAPTER IV. "Society is like a piece of frozen water; and skating well the great art of social life."--_Letitia Elizabeth Landon._ "Too bad about Hayden, isn't it?" said one business man to another after the crash came. "Yes, I am sorry for him, but he is coming out honorably, and I hope he'll commence again before long." "Well, he is made of the right stuff if he did make one mistake, and I guess he will never make the same blunder again. Too bad though about his house. No insurance at all, and that was a magnificent property." "Indeed it was, and I hope for his wife's sake he can sell the lot and get another home for her." "Can't do it now though--real estate is too low for any use in Hampton." "Yes, that's so. The only way is to mortgage, and that seems a pity in this case--" and they passed on out of hearing. John Hayden, standing within the doorway of the open store, had overheard the remarks, and while they pained, they cheered him. From that moment his resolve was taken, and as soon as everything was honorably settled he applied for credit of his old friends in the wholesale houses and they gladly gave it, for his reputation was unimpeachable. Then he rented a modest little store and began anew. Mrs. Hayden lay sick seven weeks, and arose a weak and nervous invalid, "doomed to carry a still limb all her life," the physicians said. They could not discover why her limb was stiff, but there was no help for it. How did she bear the change in her life and circumstances? When her husband told her, she just put her arms around his neck and whispered; "All right, John, I shall do the best I can to help you bear it." And from that moment they began life again. She did not even complain when they were obliged to move into a small cottage in the suburbs, but it was hard for her to be ignored and forgotten by the elegant social world, where she had so recently been an acknowledged leader. Alas! she had no sugar plums for society now, so it soon forgot her existence. There were, however, some exceptions among her former friends, and she was glad to welcome among her few visitors, Kate Turner and Grace Hall, who had grown to love Mrs. Hayden more than they would have thought possible when she seemed so high above them in the social scale. "She is turning out a saint rather than a sinner," said Kate one evening, as they were discussing the Haydens and recalled the conversation of the night of the party.