"Stop, Miss Lark!" cried I, between anger and a mad, hopeless joy; "you are not aware what you

In an instant later, I was standing by Mr. Arlington's threshold, which I was never more to pass as a friend. I rang gently, as I thought,- but my hand was agitated, and the report of the bell came sharp to my ear, like a voice shrill with rage and

wrong.

A servant, to whom I was well known, admitted me, after a long delay. I asked for Mr. Arlington, and walked into the parlor that was lighted by the solitary taper. Its faint beams fell full upon a large mirror, which startled me by the haggard image it reflected.

I sat down, and attempted to reduce my wild sensations to order. But the murmur of voices above swept over my heart like a storm. My nature was adrift, and no longer obeyed the helm of reason.

Meantime the minutes flew my request was not answered, I was still alone. At last, a step was audible on the stairs, the servant appeared-with a note. I read it, at a glance, crumpled it in my nervous grasp,—and, pressing down the gushing tenderness and the sunny hope, left thus the house which had been first to welcome me, on my arrival in Bubbleton.

No, in the rich, affable, and influential merchant,

in the comfortable, compromising, yet imperious parishioner I had no longer a friend. And yet, never

had the friendship of this man appeared half so precious as now, when all hope of regaining it was abandoned :

For when Selfishness pleads in the name of Love, in the enchanted temple of our Youth, how hard it is to perform the vow we have made to God, and hold our upward course, serene and true!

XXVI.

A SYMPATHIZING VISITOR.

IN reviewing the last record, I have grown a little apprehensive, lest the more critical of my readers may have discerned a flaw in the resolution, so gratuitously avowed, only a few pages back. "Did you not promise to abstain from all details of merely private interest?" I fancy some irritable Uncle Roland demanding; "and did you not voluntarily pledge yourself to rule out all love matters from your history? How well you have kept your word with us, let those readers judge who have read the last halfdozen pages." This Uncle Roland we will suppose to have spent all the leisure hours of a long life in reading the most intolerable fictions; and an author can pardon some irritability and tartness in one whose credulity has so often betrayed him. "Now, a clergyman," puts in Uncle Roland, argumentatively,

ought to fulfil his pledges before all other men," &c. At the end of which homily, some sententious American Caxton-snuffing the classic air of Cambridge will add, with a gesture of faultless pro

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priety, "Fidelity is the crowning virtue of the historian." And the result will be, that a prejudice will be conceived against me, at this interesting stage of my narrative, unless I shelter myself behind the ensuing paragraph:

Be it known, then, that the pledge so confidently adduced against me, is so equivocally worded as to admit of two contrary meanings, either of which may be assumed, according to the whim or interest of the author! This delightful art of "paltering in a double sense" - though represented by the great dramatist as being practised by rather a disreputable class of persons has been rendered eminently respectable, in our day, by the example of a large number of disinterested politicians, who have found it highly convenient in satisfying the anxieties of their constituents.

-

If, therefore, I have raised expectations which it is not convenient or possible to gratify, with respect to the course of this history, I shall take refuge from the shafts of censure within this mighty national precedent, and so pursue my task unscathed.

The scenes last described occurred on Friday evening.

It was not until a week from the ensuing Sunday that I again saw Mr. Arlington, or heard more than vague rumors from his family.

I shall describe, later, under what circumstances I again met the rich parishioner, and relate what ensued

upon that meeting. At present, I must allude to some intervening transactions.

The next Sunday as I had anticipated - proved an exciting day. My card had been published, and my vindication had been pronounced in Dr. Screamer's church. There was a reversion of public feeling in my favor, which was not without its influence upon the parish. It encouraged my friends - perhaps multiplied them out of the ranks of the indifferentand embittered my enemies. The church was thronged, during both services-strangers forming a large contribution to the audiences. Never was it the fortune of a preacher to address less devout assemblies. I was not heard as a minister of Christ, but as a man of eventful fortunes, who had provoked the gossip of community, and acquired a sudden notoriety. A sad, leaden consciousness of this fact weighed down my spirits, and rendered the labor of the day a painful, monotonous task.

The two recent acquisitions to the parish Harry Hanson and Saturnine Glum attended these services. The latter was accompanied by his valetudinarian daughters, who, by the by, did not exhibit the sickly appearance I had been led to anticipate, but appeared as fresh and healthful as any girls I knew. Dispirited and gloomy as my mind was, that day, I. thought it not unlikely that I might secure the apothecary's approval. In this trivial expectation, I was, however, disappointed; for he spoke to me as I was quitting the church, in the afternoon, and said he