What a change was this! Here were the Hardinges, those whom I had
known as poor almost as dependants on my own family, suddenly
enriched. I knew Mrs. Bradfort had a large six thousand a year,
besides her own dwelling-house, which stood in Wall Street, a part of
the commercial emporium that was just beginning to be the focus of
banking, and all other monied operations, and which even then promised
to become a fortune of itself. It is true, that old Daniel M'Cormick
still held his levees on his venerable stoop, where all the heavy men
in town used to congregate, and joke, and buy and sell, and abuse
Boney; and that the Winthrops, the Wilkeses, the Jaunceys, the
Verplancks, the Whites, the Ludlows, and other families of mark, then
had their town residences in this well-known street; but coming events
were beginning "to cast their shadows before," and it was easy to
foresee that this single dwelling might at least double Rupert's
income, under the rapid increase of the country and the town. Though
Lucy was still poor, Rupert was now rich.
If family connection, that all-important and magical influence, could
make so broad a distinction between us, while I was comparatively
wealthy, and Lucy had nothing, what, to regard the worst side of the
picture, might I not expect from it, when the golden scale
preponderated on her side.
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