well known as the village spire or the town pump, no one could boast
that he had shaken hands with him.

One passion, for the last fifty years of his unhonored life, had
absorbed every faculty of his mind, and, like Aaron's serpent, had
swallowed all the rest. His money-chest was his world; there the gold he
worshipped so devoutly was enshrined; and his heart, if ever he
possessed one, was buried with it: waking or sleeping, his spirit for
ever hovered around this mysterious spot. There nightly he knelt, but
not to pray: prayer had never enlightened the darkened soul of the
gold-worshipper. Favored by the solitude and silence of the night, he
stole thither, to gloat over his hidden treasure. There, during the day,
he sat for hours entranced, gazing upon the enormous mass of useless
metal, which he had accumulated through a long worthless life, to wish
it more, and to lay fresh schemes for its increase. "Vanity of vanities,
all is vanity," saith the preacher; but this hoarding of money is the
very madness of vanity.

Mark Hurdlestone's remarkable person would have formed a good subject
for a painter--it was both singular and striking.

His features in youth had been handsome, but of that peculiar Jewish
cast which age renders harsh and prominent. The high narrow wrinkled
forehead, the small deep-set jet-black eyes, gleaming like living coals
from beneath straight shaggy eyebrows, the thin aquiline nose, the long
upper lip, the small fleshless mouth and projecting chin, the expression
of habitual cunning and mental reservation, mingled with sullen pride
and morose ill-humor, gave to his marked countenance a repulsive and
sinister character. Those who looked upon him once involuntarily turned
to look upon him again, and marvelled and speculated upon the