On the following morning, Lady Swiggs received her account current, Mr. Forsheu being exceedingly prompt in business.  There was one hundred and twenty-nine days’ feed, commissions, advertising, and sundry smaller charges, which reduced the net balance to one hundred and three dollars.  Mrs. Swiggs, with an infatuation kindred to that which finds the State blind to its own poverty, stubbornly refused to believe her slaves had declined in value.  Hence she received the vender’s account with surprise and dissatisfaction.  However, the sale being binding, she gradually accommodated her mind to the result, and began evolving the question of how to make the amount meet the emergency.  She must visit the great city of New York; she must see Sister Slocum face to face; Brother Spyke’s mission must have fifty dollars; how much could she give the Tract Society?  Here was a dilemma-one which might have excited the sympathy of the House of the “Foreign Missions.”  The dignity of the family, too, was at stake.  Many sleepless nights did this difficult matter cause the august old lady.  She thought of selling another cripple!  Oh! that would not do.  Mr. Keepum had a lien on them; Mr. Keepum was a man of iron-heart.  Suddenly it flashed upon her mind that she had already been guilty of a legal wrong in selling old Molly.  Mr. Soloman had doubtless described her with legal minuteness in the bond of security for the two hundred dollars.  Her decrepid form; her corrugated face; her heavy lip; her crutch, and her piety-everything, in a word, but her starvation, had been set down.  Well!  Mr. Soloman might, she thought, overlook in the multiplicity of business so small a discrepancy.  She, too, had a large circle of distinguished friends.  If the worst came to the worst she would appeal to them.  There, too, was Sir Sunderland Swiggs’ portrait, very valuable for its age; she might sell the family arms, such things being in great demand with the chivalry; her antique furniture, too, was highly prized by our first families.  Thus Lady Swiggs contemplated these mighty relics of past greatness.  Our celtic Butlers and Brookses never recurred to the blood of their querulous ancestors with more awe than did this memorable lady to her decayed relics.  Mr. Israel Moses, she cherished a hope, would give a large sum for the portrait; the family arms he would value at a high figure; the old furniture he would esteem a prize.  But to Mr. Moses and common sense, neither the blood of the Butlers, nor Lady Swiggs’ rubbish, were safe to loan money upon.  The Hebrew gentleman was not so easily beguiled.

The time came when it was necessary to appeal to Mr. Hadger.  That gentleman held the dignity of the Swiggs family in high esteem, but shook his head when he found the respectability of the house the only security offered in exchange for a loan.  Ah! a thought flashed to her relief, the family watch and chain would beguile the Hebrew gentleman.  With these cherished mementoes of the high old family,