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In a small town like Bradford, the birds have a way of collecting and carrying news, quite unknown in more considerable cities; and, apparently, a large flock of them had been around The Mansion during the events narrated in the preceding chapter, for on the following day the community was alive with rumors concerning them. A daily paper had just been established, whose enterprising editor deemed it his special duty and privilege to bruit such personal and social intelligence as he could gain by button-holing his victims on the street, or by listening to the voluntary tattle of busybodies. My good angel, Mr. Bradford, apprehending an unpleasant noto

riety for me, and for the occurrences associated with my name, came to me at once and heard my story. Then he visited the editor, and so represented the case to him, that on the second morning after taking up my home with my father, I had the amusement of The reading a whole column devoted to it. paper was very wet and very dirty; but I presume that that column was read with more interest, by all the citizens of Bradford, than anything of national import which it might have contained. I will reproduce only its opening and closing paragraphs:

ROMANCE IN HIGH LIFE.-Our little city was thrown into intense excitement yesterday, by rumors of a most romantic and extraordinary character, concerning occurrences at

A CERTAIN MANSION,

which occupies an elevated position, locally, socially, and historically. It appears that a certain estimable young man, whose heroic feat cost him so dearly in a recent struggle with

A MIDNIGHT ASSASSIN,

is the natural heir to the vast wealth which he so gallantly rescued from spoliation, and that

A CERTAIN ESTIMABLE LADY,

well known to our citizens as the companion of a certain other lady, also well known, is his mother. Nothing more startling than the developments in this case has occurred in the eventful history of our city.

A MYSTERY

has always hung around these persons, and we are not among those who are surprised at the solution. But the most remarkable part of the story is that which relates to the young man who has been reared with the expectation of becoming the owner of this magnificent estate. Upon learning the relations of the young man previously alluded to, to his benefactress, he at once, in loyalty to his friend and his own personal honor, renounced forever his expectations, surrendered his position to the heir so strangely discovered, and took up his abode in his father's humble home. This act, than which none nobler was ever performed, was, we are assured by as good authority as there is in Bradford, wholly voluntary.

WE GIVE THAT YOUNG MAN OUR HAT

Miller & Sons' best-and assure him that, in whatever position he may choose to take in this community, he will have such support as our humble editorial pen may give him. We feel that no less than this is due to his nobility of character.

interested. My editorial friend had so represented the case as to win for me something. better than sympathy; and a good-natured, reticence under all inquiries, on my own part, seemed to enhance the respect of the people for me. But I had something more important on hand than seeking food for my vanity. I had myself on hand and my future; and the gossip of the community was, for the first time in my life, a matter of indifference.

It occurred to me during the day that an academy, which a number of enterprising people had built two or three years before, had been abandoned and closed, with the conclusion of the spring term, for lack of support, and that it would be possible for me to secure it for the field of my future enterprise. I called at once upon those who held the building in charge, and, before I slept, closed a bargain, very advantageous to myself, which placed it at my disposal for a term of three years. The next day I visited my friend the editor, whom I found with bare arms, wel} smeared with ink, at work at his printer's case, in setting up the lucubrations of the previous night. He was evidently flattered by my call, and expressed the hope that what he had written with reference to myself was satisfactory. Assuring him that I had no fault to find with him, I exposed my project, which not only met with his hearty approval,

It is rumored that the newly-found heir has formed A TENDER ALLIANCE

with a beautiful young lady-a blonde-who is not a stranger in the family of our blue-eyed hero-an alliance which will enable her to

SHARE HIS BONNY CASTLE,

I

From his office I went directly to the chambers of the principal lawyer of the city, and entered my name as a student of law. took no advice, I sought no aid, but spoke freely of my plans to all around me. I realized almost at once how all life and circumstance bend to the man who walks his own determined way, toward an object definitely

ble bonds. Long may they wave!

Far be it from us, enthroned upon the editorial tripod, and wielding the scepter of the press, to invade the sanctities of private life, and we therefore withhold all names. It was due to the parties concerned and to the public, however, to state the facts, and put an end to gossip and conjecture among those who have no better business than that of tampering with the secrets of the hearthstone and the heart.

During the day, I broke through the reluctance which I naturally felt to encounter the public gaze after this exposure of my affairs, and went out upon the street. Of course, I found myself the object of universal curiosity and the subject of universal remark. Never in my life had I been treated with more deference. Something high in position had been won back to the sphere of common life, and common life was profoundly

promptness and energy, and indeed I was surprised by myself. My dreams of luxury and ease were gone, and the fascinations of enterprise and action took strong possession of me. I was busy with my preparations for school and with study all day, and, at night, every moment stolen from sleep was filled with planning and projecting. father was delighted, and almost lived and moved and had his being in me. To him I told everything, and the full measure of his old faith in me was recovered.

My

When the autumn term of the academy opened, of which I was principal, and my sister Claire the leading assistant, every seat was full. Many of the pupils had come from the towns around, though the principal attendance was from the city, and I entered at

once upon a life of the most fatiguing labor and the most grateful prosperity. My purse was filled at the outset with the advanced instalment upon the term-bills, so that both Claire and myself had a delightful struggle with my father in our attempt to compel him to receive payment for our board and lodgings. Our little dwelling was full of new life. Even my mother was shaken from her refuge of faithlessness, and compelled to smile. Since those days I have had many pleasant experiences; but I doubt whether I have ever spent three years of purer happiness than those which I passed with Claire beneath the roof of that old academy-old now, for, though put to strange uses, the building is standing still.

There was one experience connected with this part of my history of which it is a pain to speak, because it relates to the most subtle and sacred passage of my inner life; but having led the reader thus far, I should be disloyal to my Christian confession were I to close my lips upon it and refuse its revelation.

I

From the hour when I first openly joined a band of Christian disciples, I had been conscious of a mighty arm around me. Within the circuit of that restraining power I had exercised an almost unrestricted liberty. had violated my conscience in times and ways without number, yet, when tempted to reckless wandering, I had touched the obstacle and recoiled. In whatever direction I might go, I always reached a point where I became conscious of its living pulsations and its unrelaxing embrace. Unseen, impalpable, it was as impenetrable as adamant and as strong as God. The moment I assumed responsibility over other lives, and gave my own life in counsel and labor for the good of those around me, the arm came closer, and conveyed to me the impression of comfort and help and safety. I thanked God for the restraint which that voluntary act of mine had imposed upon me.

But this was not all. My life had come into the line of the divine plan for my own Christian development. I had been a recipient all my life; now I had become an active power. I had all my life been appropriating the food that came to me, and amusing myself with the playthings of fancy and imagination; now I had begun to act and expend in earnest work for worthy objects. spiritual attitude effected by this change was one which brought me face to face with all that was unworthy in me and my past life, and I felt myself under the operations of a

The

ure.

mighty, regenerating power, which I had no disposition to resist. I could not tell whence it came or whither it went. If it was born of myself, it was a psychological experience which I could neither analyze nor measIt was upon me for days and weeks. It was within me like leaven in the lump, permeating, enlivening, lifting me. It was like an eye-stone in the eye, searching for dust in every place and plication, and removing it, until the orb was painless and the vision pure. There was no outcry, no horror of great darkness, no disposition to publish, but a subtle, silent, sweet revolution. As it went on within me, I grew stronger day by day, and my life and work were flooded with the light of a great and fine significance. Sensibility softened and endurance hardened under it.

Thou

Spirit of God! Infinite Mother! didst not thunder on Sinai amidst smoke and tempest; but in the burning bush thou didst appear in a flame that warmed without withering, and illuminated without consuming. Thou didst not hang upon the cross on Calvary, but thou didst stir the hearts of the bereaved disciples as they walked in the way with their risen Lord. All gentle ministries to the spiritual life of men emanate from Thee. Thou brooding, all-pervading presence, holding a weeping world in thy maternal embrace, with counsel and courage and tender chastening and holy inspirations! Was it thy arm that had been around me all these years, and came closer and closer, until I felt myself folded to a heart that flooded me with love? I only know that streams rise no higher than their fountain, and that the fountain of spiritual life in me had sunk and ceased to flow long before this time. Could anything but a long, strong rain from the skies have filled it? All the things we see are types of things we do not see-visible expressions of the things and thoughts of God. All the phenomena of nature-the persistent radiance of the sun and moon-the coming, going, and unloading, and the grace and glory of the clouds the changes of the seasons and of the all-enveloping atmosphere, are revelations to our senses and our souls of those operations and influences which act upon our spiritual natures. I find no miracle in this; only nature speaking without material interpreters— only the God of nature shunning the coarser passages of the senses, and finding his way direct to the Spirit by means and ministries and channels of his own.

Was this conversion ? tellectual matter at all.

It was not an inI had changed no

opinions, for the unworthy opinions I had acquired had fallen from me, one by one, as my practice had conformed more and more to the Christian standard. Indeed, they were not my opinions at all, for they had been assumed in consequence of the necessity of somewhat bringing my spiritual and intellectual natures into harmony. My deepest intellectual convictions remained precisely what they had always been. No, it was a spiritual quickening. It had been winter with me, and I had been covered with snow and locked with ice. Did I melt the bonds which held me, by warmth self-generated? Does the rose do this, or the violet? There was a sun in some heaven I could not see that shone upon me. There was a wind from some far latitude that breathed upon me. To be quickened is to be touched by a vital finger. To be quickened is to receive a fructifying flood from the great source of life.

The change was something better than had happened to me under Mr. Bedlow's preaching, long years before, but neither change was conversion. Far back in childhood, at my mother's knee, at my father's side, and in my own secret chamber, those changes were wrought which had directed my life toward a Christian consummation. My little rivulet was flowing toward the sea, increasing as it went, when it was disturbed by the first awful experiences of my life; and its turbid waters were never, until this latter time, wholly clarified. My little plant, tender but upright, was just rising out of its nursing shadows into the light when the great tempest swept over it. If my later experience was conversion, then conversion may come to a man every year of his life. It was simply the revivification and reinforcement of the powers and processes of spiritual life. It was ministry, direct and immediate, to development and growth; and with me it was complete restoration to the track of my Christian boyhood, and a thrusting out of my life of all the ideas, policies and results of that terrible winter which I can never recall without self-pity and humiliation.

The difference in the respective effects of the two great crises of my spiritual history upon my power to work illustrated better than anything else, perhaps, the difference in their nature. The first was a dissipation of power. I could not work while it lasted, and it was a long time before I could gather and hold in hand my mental forces. The second was an accession of strength and the power of concentration. I am sure that I never

worked harder or better than I did during the time that my late change was in progress. It was an uplifting, enlightening, and strengthening inspiration. One was a poison, the other was a cure; one disturbed, the other harmonized; one was surcharged with fear, the other brimmed with hope; one exhausted, the other nourished and edified me; one left my spirit halting and ready to stumble, the other left it armed and plumed.

After my days at the academy, came my evening readings of the elementary books of the profession which I had chosen. There were no holidays for me e; and during those three years I am sure I accomplished more professional study than nine-tenths of the young men whose every day was at their disposal. I was in high health and in thorough earnest. My physical resources had never been overtasked, and I found myself in the possession of vital resources which enabled me to accomplish an enormous amount of labor. I have no doubt that there were those around me who felt a measure of pity for me, but I had no occasion to thank them for it. I had never before felt so happy. and I learned then, what the world is slow to learn, that there can be no true happiness that is not the result of the action of harmonious powers steadily bent upon pursuits that seek a worthy end. Comfort of a certain sort there may be, pleasure of a certain quality there may be, in ease and in the gratification of that which is sensuous and sensual in men and women; but happiness is never a lazy man's dower or a sensualist's privilege. That is reserved for the worker, and can never be grasped and held save by true manhood and womanhood. It was a great lesson to learn, and it was learned for a lifetime; for in this even-tide of life, with the power to rest, I find no joy like that which comes to me at the table on which, day after day, I write the present record.

During the autumn and winter which followed the assumption of my new duties, I was often at The Mansion, and a witness of the happiness of its inmates. Mrs. Sanderson was living in a new atmosphere. Every thought and feeling seemed to be centered upon her lately discovered treasure. She listened to his every word, watched his every motion, and seemed to feel that all her time was lost that was not spent in his presence. The strong, indomitable, self-asserting will which she had exercised during all her life was laid at his feet. With her fortune she gave herself. She was weary with the long strain and relinquished it. She trusted him.