Dazzled by the
accounts of some successful ventures made by neighbors, Derblay began
to dream of doubling his capital by speculation, and accordingly
invested the two or three thousand francs of his savings in shares
which were to bring him fifteen per cent., but which ultimately left
him without a sixpence. To make matters worse, his land was bought by
a railway company, and this sale, by placing in his hands a round sum
of ready money, prompted him with the delusive hope of regaining his
losses: he speculated again, and this time as unhappily as the first,
swamping all his funds in some worthless enterprise, which on the
strength of its prospectus he had believed "safe as the Bank of
France." To fill the cup of his sorrows to the brim, four of his five
children were carried off by illness, the only one spared being Henri,
the youngest. At forty-eight, Francois and his wife, but five years
younger than himself, were thus obliged to begin life again, poorer
than at first, for they had no longer youth, as when they married.
They were not disheartened, however: they had their boy to live for,
and set to work so bravely that after ten years' struggle they found
themselves owners of the cottage and field I have described.
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