Meanwhile he called on Mrs. Semple, and the more he called the better he liked her.  There was no exchange of brilliant ideas between them; but he had a way of being comforting and social when he wished.  He advised her about her business affairs in so intelligent a way that even her relatives approved of it.  She came to like him, because he was so considerate, quiet, reassuring, and so ready to explain over and over until everything was quite plain to her.  She could see that he was looking on her affairs quite as if they were his own, trying to make them safe and secure.

“You’re so very kind, Frank,” she said to him, one night.  “I’m awfully grateful.  I don’t know what I would have done if it hadn’t been for you.”

She looked at his handsome face, which was turned to hers, with child-like simplicity.

“Not at all.  Not at all.  I want to do it.  I wouldn’t have been happy if I couldn’t.”

His eyes had a peculiar, subtle ray in them—­not a gleam.  She felt warm toward him, sympathetic, quite satisfied that she could lean on him.

“Well, I am very grateful just the same.  You’ve been so good.  Come out Sunday again, if you want to, or any evening.  I’ll be home.”

It was while he was calling on her in this way that his Uncle Seneca died in Cuba and left him fifteen thousand dollars.  This money made him worth nearly twenty-five thousand dollars in his own right, and he knew exactly what to do with it.  A panic had come since Mr. Semple had died, which had illustrated to him very clearly what an uncertain thing the brokerage business was.  There was really a severe business depression.  Money was so scarce that it could fairly be said not to exist at all.  Capital, frightened by uncertain trade and money conditions, everywhere, retired to its hiding-places in banks, vaults, tea-kettles, and stockings.  The country seemed to be going to the dogs.  War with the South or secession was vaguely looming up in the distance.  The temper of the whole nation was nervous.  People dumped their holdings on the market in order to get money.  Tighe discharged three of his clerks.  He cut down his expenses in every possible way, and used up all his private savings to protect his private holdings.  He mortgaged his house, his land holdings—­everything; and in many instances young Cowperwood was his intermediary, carrying blocks of shares to different banks to get what he could on them.

“See if your father’s bank won’t loan me fifteen thousand on these,” he said to Frank, one day, producing a bundle of Philadelphia & Wilmington shares.  Frank had heard his father speak of them in times past as excellent.

“They ought to be good,” the elder Cowperwood said, dubiously, when shown the package of securities.  “At any other time they would be.  But money is so tight.  We find it awfully hard these days to meet our own obligations.  I’ll talk to Mr. Kugel.”  Mr. Kugel was the president.