and aid me in an enterprise which is
worth all our strength, and the strength of a thousand mightier than we!«
    There can be no need of giving, in detail, the conversation that ensued. It
is enough to say, that Hollingsworth once more brought forward his rigid and
unconquerable idea; a scheme for the reformation of the wicked by methods moral,
intellectual, and industrial, by the sympathy of pure, humble, and yet exalted
minds, and by opening to his pupils the possibility of a worthier life than that
which had become their fate. It appeared, unless he over-estimated his own
means, that Hollingsworth held it at his choice (and he did so choose) to obtain
possession of the very ground on which we had planted our Community, and which
had not yet been made irrevocably ours, by purchase. It was just the foundation
that he desired. Our beginnings might readily be adapted to his great end. The
arrangements, already completed, would work quietly into his system. So
plausible looked his theory, and, more than that, so practical; such an air of
reasonableness had he, by patient thought, thrown over it; each segment of it
was contrived to dove-tail into all the rest, with such a complicated
applicability; and so ready was he with a response for every objection - that,
really, so far as logic and argument went, he had the matter all his own way.
    »But,« said I, »whence can you, having no means of your own, derive the
enormous capital which is essential to this experiment? State-street, I imagine,
would not draw its purse-strings very liberally, in aid of such a speculation.«
    »I have the funds - as much, at least, as is needed for a commencement - at
command,« he answered. »They can be produced within a month, if necessary.«
    My thoughts reverted to Zenobia. It could only be her wealth which
Hollingsworth was appropriating so lavishly. And on what conditions was it to be
had? Did she fling it into the scheme, with the uncalculating generosity that
characterizes a woman, when it is her impulse to be generous at all? And did she
fling herself along with it? But Hollingsworth did not volunteer an explanation.
    »And have you no regrets,« I inquired, »in overthrowing this fair system of
our new life, which has been planned so deeply, and is now beginning to flourish
so hopefully around us? How beautiful it is, and, so far as we can