The miser’s history went on as before—still gaining, still adding;
while the daughter’s bloom passed slowly away. Her limbs lost their
roundness, her face grew sharp and hollow, and grief sat ever upon it,
until her friends had almost forgotten its former mirth and beauty, and
were half persuaded that it had been always so. No questioning of mine
would entice her to an explanation. “It is a matter with which you can
have nothing to do. There is no remedy in your hands. Let me alone; I
wrestle daily with my God.” What could I say? I was silent; for it was
indeed a matter with which I had nothing to do. Preach to the drunkard
over his cups; to the gambler, when he wins; to the man whose garments
are like unto his who came from Edom, red with the blood of men, and
gain a soul for Heaven; but the miser, with one foot on Mammon, the
other on the grave, never yet turned from his first love, or forgot the
gods which his own hands have fashioned. John Cornelius became used to
his daughter’s declining health, and soon ceased to speak of it. Indeed,
engrossed in his labors of accumulation, he began to think she was well
enough, as well as she ever had been, and that the change, if change
there was, was in his own eyes, which had, perhaps, grown somewhat dim
with age. Poor Anne! she nightly sat at her father’s knees, and nightly
read to him, and he nightly praised her beauty, and called her a foolish
girl, and kissed away her tears, and babbled of gold, till her heart
withered within her, and she withdrew to dream of her mother, and a
great joy, and to gather a new courage to begin again her ceaseless
task, ever hoping, ever disappointed. Thus ran a year away.