The furniture arrived, and the country residence was very soon in order. Howard took the direction of the farming part. But it was no object to Frances to have much ploughing or planting. She loved the “green pastures and still waters,” and often repeated those beautiful lines of the hymn—

“To dewy vales and flowery meads,
My weary, fainting steps he leads,
Where peaceful rivers, soft and slow,
Amid the verdant landscape flow.”

Clyde Farm was a singularly retired spot, notwithstanding its vicinity to a country village, which, on a straight line, was about two miles from it. But there was a high hill between, that belonged to the farm, and was crowned with oak and chestnut trees; while here and there was an opening which gave a perfect view of the village, with its church, academy, and square four-story tavern, with windows enough to give it the appearance of a huge lantern. The high road was a mile from the house, and no dwelling was nearer. The hill overlooked one of those New England landscapes that could not be wrought into a well-composed picture; objects were too abundant; it was dotted with farms and sheets of water; and beyond, the beautiful Merrimac wound its way. On this spot, Frances had a little open pavilion erected, and it was her resort at sunset. As her health improved, her mind opened to the impressions of happiness, and she grew almost gay. “There is but one thing more,” said she to her brother and sister, “that I now desire in this world.”

“Always one thing wanting for us poor mortals!” said Charlotte; “but let us hear what it is.”

“That my husband, who is the liberal donor of my enjoyment, should partake of it.”

“Pray be contented,” replied she, “and let him enjoy himself in his own way.”

“I have a letter for you,” said Howard, “that came enclosed in one to me;” and, with an air of hesitation, he gave it to her.

Frances hastily took it; her color came and went as she read. It informed her, that the offers her husband had received for his estate in town had not only opened his eyes to its value, but had convinced him that, as a patriotic citizen, he had no right to retain it for his private use; he had therefore come to the conclusion to reap the benefit himself which other speculators had proposed to do. He should take down the house, make a street through the land, divide it into small lots, and erect a number of houses upon it, one of which he meant to reserve for himself. “I should regret what I conceive to be the necessity of this thing,” he added, “if you were not so perfectly satisfied with your Clyde residence. As you will always repair to it early in the spring, it matters little if you return to walls of brick and mortar in the autumn.”

We pass over the involuntary tears that followed this communication, as speculators would pronounce them unreasonable. It now became necessary for Frances to visit the city to make arrangements, and take a last leave of her pleasant mansion. In justice, it must be said, she thought less of her own deprivation than of the new accession of care and toil that her husband was bringing upon himself.—When she returned to Clyde, she had lost by fatigue nearly all the health she had previously gained.

Most people have witnessed the rapidity with which the work of destruction goes on in modern days. In a very short time the splendid mansion was a pile of ruins, a street laid open, and buildings erecting on the spot.

Mr. Draper’s visits to Clyde had been hitherto confined to the Sabbath, and generally terminated with it: but he now wrote to his wife that he intended to “pass a month with her. It was a comparative season of leisure; his vessels had sailed, his buildings were going on well, and he should be able to enjoy the quiet of the country.”

Frances received this intelligence with new-born hope. She felt certain, that one month, passed amidst the tranquil pleasures of the country, would regenerate his early tastes. She talked eloquently of the corrupting atmosphere of the city, and was sanguine that now all would go well; that his inordinate engrossment in business would yield to the influences by which he would find himself surrounded. And so it turned out, for a few days. Mr. Draper was as happy as an affectionate husband and father must naturally be, reunited to the objects of his tenderness. He said that “he felt uncommonly well, had much less of the dyspepsy than he had experienced for years,” followed his little girls to their favorite haunts, and seemed to realize the blessing of leisure. Howard, with his family, passed the third day with them. Towards evening, they all ascended the hill. Mr. Draper was struck with the extensive view, and the beauty of his wife’s domain, for he scrupulously called it her own. “What a waste of water!” he exclaimed. “What a noble run for mills and manufactories!” Poor Frances actually turned pale; but, collecting her spirits, she said, “It is hardly right to call it a waste of water.”

“Liberal, not lavish, is kind Nature’s hand.”

In the mean time, Mr. Draper had taken his pencil, and on the back of a letter was making lines and dashes. “Look here,” said he to Howard. “See how perfectly this natural ledge of rocks may be converted into a dam: it seems precisely made for it: then, by digging a canal to conduct the water a little to the left, there is a fine site for a cotton-manufactory, which, built of granite, would add much to the beauty of the prospect. Just here, where that old tree is thrown across the stream, a bridge may be built, in the form of an arch, which also must be of stone. It will make the view altogether perfect.”

“I cannot think,” said Howard, “the view would be improved; you would have a great stone building, with its countless windows and abutments, but you would lose the still, tranquil effect of the prospect, and take much from the beauty of the stream.”

“Not as I shall manage it,” said Mr. Draper. “I am sure Frances herself will agree with me that it adds fifty per cent. to the beauty of the prospect when she sees it completed.”

In vain Frances protested she was satisfied with it as it was; the month that she had hoped was to be given to leisure was one of the busiest of her husband’s life. Contracts were made—an association formed. Mr. Draper was continually driving to the city, and mechanics were passing to and fro. Clyde Farm began to wear the appearance of a business place. A manufacturing company was incorporated under the title of the Clyde Mills. The stillness of the spot was exchanged for the strokes of the pickaxe, the human voice urging on oxen and horses, the blasting of rocks; the grass was trampled down, the trees were often wantonly injured, and, where they obstructed the tracks of wheels, laid prostrate. Frances no longer delighted to walk at noon day under the thick foliage that threw its shadow on the grass as vividly as a painting. All was changed! It is true she now saw her husband, but she had but little more of his society; his mind and time were wholly engrossed; he came often, and certainly did not, as formerly, confine his visits to the Sabbath.

All went on with wonderful rapidity; story rose upon story, till it seemed as if the new manufactory, with its windows and abutments, was destined to become another Babel. When Charlotte came to Clyde, she gazed with astonishment. “All this,” said she to Howard, “is the project of a speculator! Grown men now-a-days remind me of the story of the boy who planted his bean at night, and went out in the morning to see how it grew; he found it had nearly reached the chamber windows; he went out the next morning, and it was up to the eaves of the house; on the third morning, it had shot up to the clouds, and he descried a castle, or a manufactory, I don’t know which, on the top of it. Then it was high time to scale it; so up, up, he went, and when he arrived at the building, he put his foot into it, and then he perceived it was made of vapor; and down came bean, castle, and boy, headlong, in three seconds, though it had taken three whole days to complete the work.”

“You must tell your story to my brother,” said Howard.

“No,” replied Charlotte; “he would not profit by it; but I will tell it to my children, and teach them to train their beans in the good old-fashioned way, near the ground.”

Thus passed the autumn at Clyde; that period which every reflecting mind enjoys as a season of contemplation; that period when our New England woods assume every variety of color, and shine forth with a splendor that indicates decay. Still the two families had much enjoyment together; the health of Frances and little Charlotte had decidedly improved; but when the leaves began to fall, and the wind to whistle through the branches, they quitted Clyde and returned to the city. Their new house was not ready for them, and they were obliged to take lodgings at one of the hotels.

Mr. Draper met Dr. B., their friend and physician, in his walks, and begged him to call and see his wife. “I rejoice to say,” said he, “that her health does not require any medical advice; she is quite well.”

Probably Dr. B. thought otherwise, for he suggested the advantage that both she and the little girl might derive from passing the winter in a warm climate. Never was there a fairer opportunity; they had no home to quit, and their residence at a hotel was one of necessity, not of choice. But Mr. Draper said it was quite impossible. What! leave his counting-room, State Street, India Wharf, the insurance offices! leave all in the full tide of speculation, when he was near the El Dorado for which he had so long been toiling! when Eastern lands and Western lands, rail-roads and steam-boats, cotton, and manufactories, were in all their glory; when his own Clyde Mills were just going into operation! It was impossible, wholly impossible; and Frances would not go without him. The suggestion was given up, and she remained in the city almost wholly confined to the atmosphere of a small room with a coal fire. Unfortunately the measles appeared among the children at the hotel, and Mrs. Draper’s were taken sick before she knew that the epidemic was there. They had the best attendance, but nothing supersedes a mother’s devotion. Frances passed many a sleepless night in watching over them. With the eldest the disorder proved slight, but it was otherwise with the youngest; and when she began to grow better, the mother drooped. It was a dreary winter for poor Mrs. Draper, but not so for her husband. Never had there been a season of such profits, such glorious speculations! Some croakers said it could not last; and some of our gifted statesmen predicted that an overwhelming blow must inevitably come. But all this was nothing to speculators; it certainly would not arrive till after they had made their millions.

Spring approached, with its uncertainty of climate; sometimes, the streets were in rivers, and the next day frozen in masses; then came volumes of east wind. Mrs. Draper’s cough returned more frequently than ever, and Charlotte looked too frail for earth. The physician informed Mr. Draper that he considered it positively necessary to remove the invalids to a milder climate, and mentioned Cuba. Mr. Draper, however, decided that an inland journey would be best, and, inconvenient as it was, determined to travel as far as some of the cotton-growing states. After the usual busy preparations, they set off, the wife fully realizing that she was blighting in the bud her husband’s projected speculations for a few weeks to come, and feeling that he was making what he considered great sacrifices.

Almost all invalids who have travelled on our continent in pursuit of uniformity of climate, have been disappointed. At New York they were detained a week by a flight of snow and rain, shut up in dreary rooms; then came a glimmering of sunshine, and Philadelphia looked bright and serene; but at Baltimore the rain again descended. They were so near Washington, Mr. Draper thought it best to hurry on, with every precaution for the invalids. At Washington, they found the straw mattings had superseded woollen carpets, and the fire-places were ornamented with green branches. They continued their journey south till they at length arrived at Charleston. Here they found a milder climate, and a few days of sunshine. Mr. Draper was no longer restless; he had full employment in shipping cargoes of cotton, and making bargains, not only for what was in the market, but for a proportion of that which was yet to grow, as confidently as if he had previously secured the rain and sunshine of heaven. There is a constant change of weather on our coast—another storm came on. The little invalid evidently lost rather than gained. Discouraged and disheartened, Frances begged they might return. “One week at Clyde, where they might have the comforts of home, would do more for them,” she said, “than all this fruitless search for a favorable climate.” When Mr. Draper had completed his bargains, he was equally desirous to return to the city, and at the end of a tedious journey, over bad roads in some parts of it, rail-roads in others, and a tremendous blow round Point Judith, the travellers arrived at Boston on one of those raw, piercing, misty days, that seemed to have been accumulating fogs for their reception. The physician hastened their departure to Clyde, as it was inland and sheltered from the sea. This removal was made, and then they had nothing to do but to get well. Howard and Charlotte were rejoiced at the reunion, and the feeble little invalid tried to resume her former sports with her cousins. But all would not answer, and when June came on, with its season of roses, she slept at the foot of the mount. It was a retired spot that the mother selected for the remains, and only a temporary one, for they were to be removed to Mount Auburn at the close of autumn.

It were well if we could receive the events of Providence in the sublime simplicity with which they come, but the sensitive and tender-hearted often add to their poignancy by useless self-reproach. Frances thought the journey had, perhaps, been the cause of the child’s untimely death, and lamented that she had not opposed a measure which she had undertaken solely for its benefit. The death of friends is a calamity that few have not strength enough to bear, if they do not exaggerate their sufferings, by imagining that something was done, or left undone, for which they were responsible. To this nervous state of feeling Frances was peculiarly liable, from her ill health; and it was many weeks before her excellent powers of mind obtained full exercise. Yet they finally triumphed, and she became first resigned, then cheerful. The sorrow of the father was of a different character, and exhausted itself in proportion to its violence. It was followed by new projects and new anticipations; the manufactory had succeeded beyond his most sanguine expectations. A discovery had been made that enabled them to afford their cloth a cent per yard cheaper than any other manufacturing establishment. Bales of cotton poured in upon him from the south, and ships arrived from various parts of the world. How could he find time for grief!