name was Crandell, you are the very man I was thinking of. I am a printer. I am going to start a penny paper, and you must edit it."

"Come up to my room," said Kennedy, "and we will talk of it."

in the church gallery chaunting the Epis- he was walking down the Main street, who copal service. He hired a large room, and should he meet but the man, who with his gave a gratuitous performance, with an pretty wife, had been his fellow traveller, empty barrel for a music stand, to the more than a year before, from Philadelyoung gentlemen of the place; and sophia. "Ah," said this individual, whose fascinated a goodly number of them, that they incontinently became pupils. Best of all, he met in the bar-room of the inn, a graduate of a famous college in the centre of New England, who wore on his breast that mysterious pin which was to be a symbol of learning and "fraternity" the world over. In this instance it proved so. The graduate, who was a law student, was a true man, and he and Kennedy at once struck out a friendship that was never broken. By this means the latter became intimate with the learned men of the town, and played whist with judges, doctors and colonels.

So passed the summer. But as it drew towards autumn, our friend became more and more dissatisfied with his partial success. His labor was irksome to the last degree, and it barely paid his expenses. He determined to try Cincinnati once more, and if unable to gain a livelihood there, to return to the East, where the labor of his hands (for he was a good mechanic) would soon put him on the road to competence. Accordingly he took passage for the Queen City. Here, while calling upon a lawyer to see if something might not be done in the way of drawing and copying papers, a gentleman came in, who said he was looking for some one to teach his daughters in his house. He was a man of wealth, and was ready to pay a liberal salary.

Next week saw the first number of the Daily Luminary. It was published two months before Kennedy was twenty-onea boyish affair, full of the inexperience and glowing animal spirits of youth, which none of his perplexities had yet broken. It was successful. Our friend was not a fluent writer, but he had perseverance, and it was found that he had good sense, and some wit. He had at last got hold of a string that he could pull. Poverty no longer stared him out of countenance; he began to feel the dignity of independence.

Only one thing now troubled him. Lucy why had she never answered his letters? Could it be she had ceased to care for him? Even if it were so, she surely might have written. In the midst of his labors such thoughts would constantly annoy him. In his midnight musings, on the crowded street, or on that busy landing where he often walked to enjoy the beauty of active life-wherever he was, or however engaged, the idea of Lucy was perpetually recurring. It was an undertone that ran through his whole existence; the doubt respecting her was a sickness that preyed upon his heart. In business, he might now consider himself prosperous; might look forward to the realization, a year or two hence, of his long cherished wishes, if-ah, that if!-Lucy was the same Lucy he had left so long ago. Anxious as he was, however, he would have been infinitely more so had he known the real truth.

The next week found our friend seated with five girls, two of them almost young ladies, in a lofty back parlor. Kennedy used to take quite pride in relating how odd it was that he, a rough man, should at this time have had the care of several who afterwards became celebrated belles, and are now fashionable women in a great city. But if any one could tell the truths of his own life, it would be stranger than any fiction. There was nothing particularly For some months after Kennedy's deromantic in Kennedy's adventures; they parture for the West, Lucy's depression only show the difficulties which lie in the was too plain to escape the observation of way of educated young men, who have her parents, and with a very little soundhad no good worldly training, nor any as-ing, they soon ascertained its cause. For

sistance of friends.

He continued in this manner to perform the duties of a governess, till one day as

the first time they now began to think of her as a marriageable young woman, for whom it was their duty to provide. Her

large a little upon the character of students. He thought them wild young fellows. Seldom or never did they grow up to be substantial men. There was Mr. Such-aone, he remembered, nothing would do but his son must have a liberal education. Well, the young man ended in the poorhouse.

Sometimes the well-meaning mother would advert to the proverbial impiety of students, and professional men generally. Men of learning were commonly too proud to become possessors of "vital godliness." She even feared their young friend Kennedy (at the mention of which name Lucy was sure to blush) would never be a

suffering on account of the departure of an |
old companion, was, they thought, quite
natural. It showed the gentleness of her
disposition, while at the same time it set
them to reflecting that such a warmth of
affection should be bestowed upon a hus-
band. The idea that Kennedy might be a
suitable person, hardly once entered their
heads. He was her playmate, as it were,
her companion, an agreeable good-natured
fellow, but a mere boy, just such another
simple creature as herself. Besides, he
was almost without relatives or friends,
quite alone, hanging loose on the world.
It was doubtful if he would ever settle
down into a sedate man. He was a plea-
sant person to have about, very cheerful" truly pious" man
and even funny, but he lacked "stability
of character," the deacon thought. He
was young yet, only twenty, or thereabout,
and there was no predicting what he might
Indeed, it is questionable if
Lucy's father and mother ever considered
of him enough to be distinctly aware of
these reasons. He was merely ont of the
question; the idea of a student marrying
their daughter, was purely absurd.

turn out.

Having made up their minds to this, or rather, having never debated it, they laid their heads together during the hours usually appropiated to curtain lectures, to contrive-how she must be disposed of. It was plain that now she was a young woman, she must be a girl no longer. Hence it would not do for her to be corresponding with a young man because he had happened to be one of her young companions. Poor, simple Lucy! In the frankness of her heart, she told her mother how that she and Martin had promised each other to correspond, and showed her a letter she had written to him containing all the news and nothing concerning herself. Her mother said it was a very good letter. When it was fairly sealed and superscribed, she gave it to her father for the post office. That worthy man, thinking it was high time a stop was put to this childish nonsense, put it in his pocket, and ultimately into his counting-room stove. He had, previous to this, received Kennedy's first letter, which, after duly inspecting its contents, he had disposed of in a similar man

ner.

Here he thought the thing would end. At breakfast, accordingly, he would en

She remembered how

she had overheard him imitating the minister's peculiar manner of reading a hymn, and she thought such irreverent levity not a good sign in a boy.

66

Indeed, mother," Lucy would say, "but you laughed. But perhaps you do not like him because he does not write to Isn't it strange?"

me.

And then the deacon would frown severely, and remark that she spoke very pertly to her mother.

After a month or two Lucy prepared another letter; the first might have been misdirected, and Martin might be waiting for her to write first. Her parents thought it better to let it share the fate of the former one than to openly forbid her writing. But such folly must be indulged no longer. It was time she was married off and placed in circumstances where those weak and childish fancies would no longer afflict her.

Accordingly, after considerable consultation, it was at length settled that Jeremiah Brown, the eldest son of old Mr. and Mrs. Brown, who were both members of their meeting, would make her a suitable husband. Jeremiah had no great personal advantages. He was gawky and sallow. But what is beauty compared with worth? Jeremiah was a steady, practical youth, not brilliant, it is true, but shrewd and cool. He was settled in business, and with what his father had advanced him, and a handsome portion which Lucy might receive, being an only child, the couple would be in easy circumstances.

Mrs. Darling and Mrs. Brown presently grew intimate. They took tea with each other, and Lucy must always go and re

main with her mother. Jeremiah must | come frequently after his mother of evenings, and Lucy must of course entertain him with her songs and the backgammon, at which he always won. After a while he came alone, and Lucy's careful parents would then contrive it to be sometimes both out of the room, leaving the young couple to chat alone. Poor Lucy! She did not see the game they were playing for her happiness; but Brown was awfully dull in conversation. He reasoned and argued, in his fashion, on all sorts of subjects, and his talk ran on in a long weary monotone, like the turning of a coffee mill. He had "improved his mind," and knew all the newest ologies and graphies. He discoursed of "developments," and in his letters wrote "centre" center. On doctrinal points he was almost as tedious as

the minister himself.

He did, not for a long while appear to be any more aware of the trap that was laying for him, than was Lucy, the unconscious bait. He visited there because it fell in his way to do so, and was equally ready to converse with father, mother, and daughter-because, like most people who talk to hear themselves, it was a matter of indifference whom he had for a listener.

poor girl shed an ocean of tears. She did not like Mr. Brown; she did not wish to marry any one. She desired to live at home all her life; she loved her father and mother; wouldn't they let her? She should die if they sent her away-and much more to the same effect.

Her wise mother was not sorry to see her take on thus. Her tears did not affect her, for she thought a little crying would do the child good. Self-willed and passionate people, she said, must expect to suffer now and then. She thought her daughter showed a very hard, proud spirit in opposing her parents. Her love for them could not be much, when she was hindering them in what they most desired. If the truth was known, she suspected it was nothing but a foolish fancy for that boy, Kennedy; notwithstanding he had been gone nearly two years, and nobody had ever heard from him.

This was touching the right chord; poor Lucy's heart burst then, and revealed all its hoarded treasure. She had promised Martin, she said, to be his wife; she liked him; she never could like any other. It was so strange what had become of him.

Well! of all the foolishness that ever was heard of, exclaimed the excellent moth

the very beat. She had not expected quite such silliness. It made her almost ashamed of her own flesh and blood. She could not talk upon it. Lucy had better retire to her chamber. She hoped her father would not find it out.

But he began to "smell rats," as heer, with uplifted hands, this was certainly would probably have phrased it, long before his victim. The scheme was grateful to him. He had impulses like most men, and the idea of having so pretty a girl as Lucy for a wife, pleased his fancy. He soon began to "pay attention"-the first move in the matrimonial game. He came often, and sat late. He made Lucy a present of Butler's Analogy, which he said, very truly, was a very profound work. He gave her the benefit of much of his instructive conversation.

Poor Lucy drooped. She was in great affliction. Why, why had Martin forgotten her? Why did they wish her to pretend to like Mr. Brown, when they knew he tired her to death? She had no consolation, no grain of comfort. Her kind aunt, who had been her only confidant, had died of a typhus fever, the summer after Martin had left.

At length she summoned courage to speak with her mother. It was like a declaration of war between two parties who have long been on the eve of collision. The

When Lucy came down to tea that night how affectionate they were, her father and mother! How they hung over her and spoke in mildly modulated words!

Lucy was ashamed that she should afflict them so much. And then there was reason in what her mother said. Martin had been away so long! He must be dead. And so in her little chamber, while the musical slumbers of the venerable authors of her being shook the floors below, this dutiful daughter buried herself in her pillow and sobbed herself to sleep.

"Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land," is a precept of the same divine wisdom whose providence "visiteth the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation." It would be bet

ter if parents oftener considered how true | drinking. Goodly and comfortable was he, it is, and all observation confirms it, that well to do in the world. He had a family, the promise attached to the fifth command- and had married his own daughter to one ment is contingent upon the declaration to whom his only objection was that he was appended to the second. rich; his wife was never spoken of. Altogether he was a wonderfully great and good man. He slided out of all controversies, and none could ever tell exactly what particular shade of doctrine he most favored. Few men became a pulpit better, or were better judges of good old Madeira.

Kennedy passed from youth to age, a It was near the latter end of summer. wearied, stricken man. The impulse which They lived in a cottage house, half a mile in him supplied the place of ambition was further over the slope of the hill than Lucy's gone. He was equal to no new enterprise. former home, at the end of what is now a The life of an editor disgusted him; he fine street of well built residences. Every loved to live by the shore of the sea and afternoon, to conform to Brown's wishes, breathe his native air. Gradually he dwinwho liked system, she was accustomed to dled into the situation in which I found walk for her health. She generally took him at my uncle's, at the time when he rethe way that led over to her old garden,lated the story of Alison. He was loved and would there sit at times, and watch the and respected for his character and bearsunset, as of old. ing, but it was thought a pity he had so little energy.