Excerpt from Under Guiding Stars: A Massachusetts Story of the Century EndOld Wentworth, as the bearer of that name was called in varying accents, although he was the head of one of the oldest and highest of Bethel families, which showed no sign of bating its pride, though its fortunes had been dwind ling for the last few generations under succes sive divisions. As the commerce which had laid the foundations of their wealth decayed, the men of the name took to professions, but they were a lavish, courtly race, who found it easier to spend than to work, and their present chief, though by some unaccountable cross alliance, of very different stock from his prede cessors, was no exception in this Sharp as he was at the law, he had never made enough out of it for his ostensible expenses even, and he had unacknowledged ones, which, though cheap of their kind, ran away, as is the wont of such, with ten pence to every one he spent in open market.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.