fact from others, a serious blow to his feelings, and one, indeed, which
soon mainly led to a movement on his part that gave a new turn to his
apparent destinies, and a no less one, probably, to those of his then
almost envied brother Mark. For, finding it impossible to feel his former
interest in business, in a place whose associations had become painful to
him, he secretly resolved to leave it as soon as he believed he could do so
without leading to any surmises respecting the true cause of the change he
contemplated. Accordingly, in a few months, he began to suggest his own
unfitness for making a profitable partner in country trade, and finally
came out with a direct proposition to his brother to buy him out at a sum
which he knew would be a temptingly low one. And the result was, that the
proposition was accepted, "the partnership dissolved by mutual consent,"
and the released Arthur, with his portion, soon on his way to one of the
eastern seaports, to set up business, as he soon did, for himself alone.

The withdrawal of Arthur Elwood deprived this little establishment of its
only really valuable guidance, and left it to the chance fortunes of
greater gains or greater losses than would have been likely to occur under
the cautious and hazard-excluding system of business which he had adopted
for its control. But, nothing for a year or two occurring to induce Mark
Elwood to depart from the system under which the business had been
conducted, and Arthur's prudent maxims of trade, to which he had been
accustomed to defer, remaining fresh in his mind, he naturally kept on in
the old routine, which he was the more willing to follow, as by it he found
himself clearly on the advance. He was blessed in his family; for his wife,
who had no undue aspirations for wealth or show, had not only proved an
efficient helper by her economy and good counsels, but added still more to
his gratification by bringing him a promising boy. Being the only trader of
the village, or hamlet it might more properly be called, he was conscious
of being the object of that peculiar kind of favor and respect which was