con, and Miss Hurribattle, accommodated on the first row of chairs, with their faces under grand illumination by two camphene-lamps upon the Doctor's table. There they sat, together with Mrs. Hunesley from New York, two or three distinguished visitors from the hotel, and the elders of Foxden, looking wistfully at the bones, as if in envy of their fleshless condition that sultry August evening.

It was with real satisfaction that I perceived I was considered worthy of no more worshipful company than that of the standing stragglers at the dark end of the parlor. And as the evening breeze came freshly through the window at the back of the room, I rejoiced heartily in my lack of title to the consideration of being snugly penned in a more honorable position. As I found it might be done without attracting attention, I obeyed a strong impulse that seized me to pass through the open window to the piazza. Thence I presently descended, and strolled about the precise gravel-walks, puzzling myself to conjecture how much of the rich light was owing to the red glow which lingered in the west, and how much to the full moon just breaking through the trees. My investigations were suddenly interrupted by the advent of a carryall, which drove with great rapidity to the Doctor's gate. It was the very railway-omnibus that a few hours before had brought Miss Hurribattle and my self from the station.

"Hollo, Cap'n," called out the driver, complimenting me with that military title, "can you give a hand to this trunk? I've got to go right slap back after two more fares."

I was near the gate, and of course cheerfully acceded to this request. A heavy trunk was lifted out, and placed just behind the lilac-bushes at the edge of the lawn. The driver jumped into his omnibus and hurried away with all speed, lest his two fares should pay themselves to a rival conveyance. Behind him, however, he had left the pro

prietress of the trunk,-a lady of about five-and-twenty, in whose countenance I detected that strange sort of familiarity that entire strangers sometimes carry about them.

"This is Doctor Dastick's, is it not? Do you know whether Mrs. Hunesley expected me?" she asked, with a grace of manner that was quite irresistible.

I informed her that I was a stranger in the place, and was only at the Doctor's for a single evening; but that I could not think that Mrs. Hunesley expected anybody, as I had just seen that lady firmly fixed in the front row of chairs before the Doctor's table,whence, owing to the crowd of sitters behind, she would have some difficulty in extricating herself.

"Oh, I would not have her called for the world!" gayly exclaimed my companion. "She has told me all about the dear old Doctor's lectures; and I would not disturb his learned explanations on any account."

“I do not think that the company in general would regret an interlude of modern life and interest," said I.

"Perhaps not; but nothing seems to me so rude and disagreeable as to interrupt people, or disturb their attention, when assembled for a definite object."

We walked up the gravel-path, and softly entered the hall, where a shawl and bonnet were deposited. The Doctor's discourse was very audible, and the unexpected visitor seemed disposed to establish herself upon one of the hallchairs, and wait till it was over. There was a graceful confidence in her movement, which is to me more captivating than a pretty face; and when I had opportunity to observe more closely, I was greatly attracted by the sensibility and refinement expressed through a countenance which otherwise would have been plain. As I seemed to be whimsically cast in the part of host, and as I perceived the lady was too well-bred to make my position at all awkward, I proposed the piazza as a pleasanter place of waiting than that she had chosen.

And here let me make one of those weighty observations, derived from a profound experience, which I trust will have a redeeming savor to the judicious, should this tale of mine fail to command that general popularity to which I have begun to suspect its title. I have found that all the fine passages that lighten and enlighten this life of ours seldom run into the traps we set for them, but seem to take a perverse satisfaction in descending upon us when we are least prepared for their reception. I have never been asked out to dine with a gentleman, devoted, we will say, to the same speciality in which I have a humble interest, without being sadly disappointed in the talk that my host had kindly promised me. And when I am going to another country, and a dear friend gives me a letter to some one whom he tells me I shall be glad to meet, and from whom I shall gain great instruction, I accept the letter, knowing very well that the man I shall really be glad to meet, and from whom I shall truly gain instruction, will present himself on the top of a diligence, or take a seat at my table at some cheap café or chop-house. Thus it is, that, when there is every reason why people should break through the commonplace rubbish on the surface, and disclose a pure vein of thought and feeling, they rarely contrive to do it, but reserve their best things for the chances that touch them, when self-consciousness is asleep, and the unconstrained humanity within expands to absorb its like. Is it not in every one's experience that there are persons with whom chance has thrown us for a few hours, whom we know better, and who know us better, than the friends with whom we have bab bled of green fields, thermometers, and dirty pavements for a score of years? As I confidently expect an affirmative reply to this question, I fear no censure in saying that the evening passed on Doctor Dastick's piazza made me feel there was a possibility of social intercourse resembling the extravagant

spirituality of the mystics, when the soul bounds to the height of joyful knowledge, and without process or medium knows complete satisfaction.

How we came to talk of many things, I cannot remember; but we somehow found ourselves speaking of matters of near and deep experience without consciousness of singularity. We admitted those puzzling life-questions that present themselves on a still summer evening, when we long to escape from the conditions of finite being, and yet contemplate the necessity of working at our tasks shackled by a thousand iron circumstances.

"My plan of life, so far as I have any, seems to point to education," said my companion. "I am thrown in great measure upon my own activity for support, and have an aunt who is very zealous in the work, and who has often asked me to become her fellow-laborer. Until now I could never well leave home; but she has written to me again since she stopped, as if distressed, and with a woman's tact glanced at her mourning-dress to tell me the story;"she has written to me earnestly of late upon the subject. I feel how noble an object it is to live for, and I want an object, Heaven knows; but there are reasons perhaps I should say feelings, not reasons why I hesitate. I am asked to bind myself for ten years to the work in a Western college. There are many advantages in a permanent position, both for the teacher and the institution, but".

--

Her voice faltered; and I felt that Nature had at times made other sugges tions to that fresh young spirit, other possibilities had dawned through the future; perhaps they were certainties, -and the thought passed me with a shudder.

"Teaching is a terrible drudgery," I said; "the labor and devotion of the true teacher are yet unrecognized by the world."

"I am not afraid of the vexations," she replied: "I am very fond of being

with young people; yet I have been taught to think it was happier, if our affections could be somewhat more concentrated than In short, I had better finish an awkward sentence, by saying that I do not feel quite ready to pledge myself to give up all possibilities connected with my New-England home." It was spoken with such sweet ingenuousness that I was only charmed. The simple sincerity of the confession seemed to me much better than the flippant jest and pert talk with which I had heard such subjects treated while making my observations upon what my city-acquaintances had assured me was good society. Is it not Sterling who exclaims that a luxurious and polished life without a true sense of the beautiful and the great is more barren and sad to see than that of the ignorant and the brutalized? And if this be true, how shall we imagine a greater satisfaction than to find the fresh truth of Nature set in a polished and graceful form? For since it is through form that we take cognizance of all we love and all we believe, it is well that the sign and idea should merge, and come complete and whole to govern us aright.

I should have no objection to meditating after this manner for a page or two, as well as further hinting what important nothings sparkled upon Doctor Dastick's piazza that pleasant summer night. But as I must curtail this biographical fragment in some part or other, it seems best to do it about that portion where I may trust that the experience of every reader will supply the deficiency.

How harshly sounded the creaking of the furniture, and how strangely commercial and matter-of-fact the voices of the people that announced the conclusion of the lecture! Mrs. Hunesley managed to get out among the first, and was heartily glad to see my newly acquired friend, calling her, "My dear Kate,” which I thought was a very pretty name, and saying that she had not expected her quite so soon.

I looked into the parlor and saw the Prowley party tumbling over chairs, and scaling settees, in their haste to meet the cooling breezes of the piazza. But when they finally accomplished their purpose, and I was advancing with inquiries and congratulations, I started at seeing the surprise depicted in the countenance of Miss Hurribattle, as she gaz

ed in the direction where I stood.

"Why, Aunt Patience!" exclaimed a voice at my side.

"Why, Kate Hurribattle!" was the response.

"How in the name of wonder did you get to Foxden?"

"How under the sun did you get to Foxden?"

"Why I am here naturally enough as the guest of my friend Colonel Prowley."

"And I am here naturally enough as the guest of my friend Mrs. Hunesley." Now if I had dramatized the little event I have been trying to relate, I should have reached the precise point where the auditor would button up his coat, put on his hat, let his patent springseat go up with a click, and.begin to leave the theatre with all expedition. What would it matter to him that I had prepared a circumstantial account of how all petty objections were got over, or that I had elaborated a peculiarly felicitous tag which Colonel Prowley would speak at a few backs as they disappeared into the lobby? The auditor referred to has got an inkling of how things are to end, and can guess out the particulars as he hurries off to his business. And here will be observed our decided advantage in having made sure of the Moral by a vigorous assertion of the same at the commencement of this narrative; for, thus relieved of the necessity of a final flutter into the empyrean of ethics, we may part company in a few easy sentences.

Although the circumstances I have set down, from being awkwardly packed in a small compass, may not appear to fit into each other with all the exact

ness of a dissecting-map, I am sure, that, as they really occurred spread over a necessary time, they seemed natural and simple enough. Mrs. Hunesley, Doctor Dastick's favorite niece, was the schoolmate of Miss Kate Hurribattle, and what more likely than that she should invite her friend to pass a few weeks with her at her summer-home in the country? And could there be a greater necessity than that, meeting daily as we did through those lovely August weeks, she should become in short, that I should marry Miss Hurribattle?

And when this foolish little romance, which had taken nebulous outline in

the fancy of Colonel Prowley, suddenly fell at his feet a serious indubitability, the dear, delighted old gentleman was the first to declare, that, as our engagement had existed for the last seventy years, it certainly did not seem worth while to wait much longer. At all events, we did not wait longer than the following Thanksgiving; since which period my experience leads me to declare, that, if the Miss Hurribattle of my great-great-uncle's day was at all comparable to the member of her family I met at Foxden, my respected relative made a great mistake in living a bachelor.

You know how a little child of three or four years old kicks and howls, if it do not get its own way. You know how quietly a grown-up man takes it, when ordinary things fall out otherwise than he wished. A letter, a newspaper, a magazine, does not arrive by the post on the morning on which it had been particularly wished for, and counted on with certainty. The day proves rainy, when a fine day was specially desirable. The grown-up man is disappointed: but he soon gets reconciled to the existing state of facts. He did not much expect that things would turn out as he wished them. Yes: there is nothing like the habit of being disappointed, to make a man resigned when disappointment comes, and to enable him to take it quietly. And a habit of practical resignation grows upon most men, as they advance through life.

You have often seen a poor beggar, most probably an old man, with some lingering remains of respectability in his faded appearance, half ask an alms of a passer-by: and you have seen him, at a word of repulse, or even on finding

no notice taken of his request, meekly turn away too beaten and sick at heart for energy drilled into a dreary resig nation by the long custom of finding everything go against him in this world. You may have known a poor cripple, who sits all day by the side of the pavement of a certain street, with a little bundle of tracts in his hand, watching those who pass by, in the hope that they may give him something. I wonder, indeed, how the police suffer him to be there for, though ostensibly selling the tracts, he is really begging. Hundreds of times in the long day, he must see people approaching, and hope that they may spare him a halfpenny, and find ninety-nine out of each hundred pass without noticing him. It must be a hard school of Resignation. Disappointments without number have subdued that poor creature into bearing one disappointment more with scarce an appreciable stir of heart. But, on the other hand, kings, great nobles, and the like, have been known, even to the close of life, to violently curse and swear, if things went against them; going the

length of stamping and blaspheming even at rain and wind, and branches of trees and plashes of mud, which were of course guiltless of any design of giving offence to these eminent individuals. There was a great monarch, who, when any little cross-accident befell him, was wont to fling himself upon the floor, and there to kick and scream and tear his hair. And around him, meanwhile, stood his awe-stricken attendants: all doubtless ready to assure him that there was something noble and graceful in his kicking and screaming, and that no human being had ever before with such dignity and magnanimity torn his hair. My friend Mr. Smith tells me that in his early youth he had a (very slight) acquaintance with a great prince, of elevated rank and of vast estates. That great prince came very early to his greatness; and no one had ever - ventured, since he could remember, to tell him he had ever said or done wrong. Accordingly, the prince had never learned to control himself, nor grown accustomed to bear quietly what he did not like. And when any one, conversation, related to him something which he disapproved, he used to start from his chair, and rush up and down the apartment, furiously flapping his hands together, till he had thus blown off the steam produced by the irritation of his nervous system. That prince was a good man and so aware was he of his infirmity, that, when in these fits of passion, he never suffered himself to say a single word: being aware that he might say what he would afterwards regret. And though he could not wholly restrain himself, the entire wrath he felt passed off in flapping. And af ter flapping for a few minutes, he sat down again, a reasonable man once All honor to him! For my friend Smith tells me that that prince was surrounded by toadies, who were ready to praise everything he might do, even to his flapping. And in particular, there was one humble retainer, who, whenever his master flapped, was wont

more.

in

to hold up his hands in an ecstasy of admiration, exclaiming, "It is the flapping of a god, and not of a man!”

Now all this lack of Resignation on the part of princes and kings comes of the fact, that they are so far like children that they have not become accustomed to be resisted, and to be obliged to forego what they would like. Resignation comes by the habit of being disappointed, and of finding things go against you. It is, in the case of ordinary human beings, just what they expect. Of course, you remember the adage, "Blessed is he who expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed." I have a good deal to say about that adage. Reasonableness of expectation is a great and good thing: despondency is a thing to be discouraged and put down as far as may be. But meanwhile let me say, that the corollary drawn from that dismal beatitude seems to me unfounded in fact. I should say just the contrary. I should say, "Blessed is he who expecteth nothing, for he will very likely be disappointed." You know, my reader, whether things do not generally happen the opposite way from that which you expected. Did you ever try to keep off an evil you dreaded by interposing this buffer? Did you ever think you might perhaps prevent, a trouble from coming by constantly anticipating it, -keeping, meanwhile, an under-thought that things rarely happen as you anticipate them, and thus that your anticipation of the thing might possibly keep it away? Of course you have; for you are a human being.

And in all common cases, a watch might as well think to keep a skilful watchmaker in ignorance of the way in which its movements are produced, as a human being think to prevent another human being from knowing exactly how he will think and feel in given circumstances. We have watched the working of our own watches far too closely and long, my friends, to have the least difficulty in understanding the great principles upon which the watches