nothing to show; why it was that others, with much less care and labor,
could hoard up treasures for themselves and children? She became more
and more convinced, as she reasoned, that every thing she had
undertaken in the city of New York had finally proved a failure; and
where her hopes had been raised the highest, there she felt the failure
had been the greatest, and the disappointment most severe.


After turning it in her mind for some time, she came to the conclusion,
that she had been taking part in a great drama, which was, in itself,
but one great system of robbery and wrong. 'Yes,' she said, 'the rich
rob the poor, and the poor rob one another.' True, she had not
received labor from others, and stinted their pay, as she felt had been
practised against her; but she had taken their work from them, which
was their only means to get money, and was the same to them in the end.
For instance-a gentleman where she lived would give her a dollar to
hire a poor man to clear the new-fallen snow from the steps and
side-walks. She would arise early, and perform the labor herself,
putting the money into her own pocket. A poor man would come along,
saying she ought to have let him have the job; he was poor, and needed
the pay for his family. She would harden her heart against him, and
answer-'I am poor too, and I need it for mine.' But, in her
retrospection, she thought of all the misery she might have been adding
to, in her selfish grasping, and it troubled her conscience sorely; and
this insensibility to the claims of human brotherhood, and the wants of
the destitute and wretched poor, she now saw, as she never had done
before, to be unfeeling, selfish and wicked. These reflections and
convictions gave rise to a sudden revulsion of feeling in the heart of
Isabella, and she began to look upon money and property with great
indifference, if not contempt-being at that time unable, probably, to