“Well, that’s not so much matter,” remarked the other man. “These sour-tempered folks are mostly handy at business, and know pretty well what they are about. But, as you say, I don’t think she’ll do much. This business of keeping cent-shops is overdone, like all other kinds of trade, handicraft, and bodily labor. I know it, to my cost! My wife kept a cent-shop three months, and lost five dollars on her outlay.”

“Poor business!” responded Dixey, in a tone as if he were shaking his head, — ”poor business.”

For some reason or other, not very easy to analyze, there had hardly been so bitter a pang in all her previous misery about the matter as what thrilled Hepzibah’s heart on overhearing the above conversation.