all dissipated. They have turned out to be the merest cupboards in the wall. Nat, who had travelled, and seen London, is by no means so surprising a fellow to your manhood, as he was to the boy. He has grown spare, and wears spectacles. He is not so famous as he was. You would hardly think of consulting him now about your marriage; or even about the price of goats upon London bridge.

As for Jenny-your first, fond flame-lively, romantic, black-eyed Jenny,-the reader of Thaddeus of Warsaw, who sighed and wore blue ribbons on her bonnet,-who wrote love notes,-who talked so tenderly of broken hearts,-who used a glass seal with a cupid and a dart, dear Jenny, she is now the plump, and thriving wife of the apothecary of the town! She sweeps out every morning at seven, the little entry of the apothecary's house: she buys a joint' twice a week from the butcher, and is particular to have the 'knuckle' thrown in, for soups: she wears a sky blue calico gown, and dresses her hair in three little flat quirls on either side of her head-each one pierced through with a two-pronged hair-pin.

She does not read Thaddeus of Warsaw, now.

II.

MAN O F THE

WORLD.

NEW persons live through the first periods of

FEW

manhood, without strong temptations to be counted-men of the world.' The idea looms grandly among those vanities, that hedge a man's approach to maturity.

Clarence is in good training for the acceptance of this idea. The broken hope which clouded his closing youth, shoots over its influence upon the dawn of manhood. Mortified pride had taught as it always teaches-not caution only, but doubt, distrust, indifference. A new pride grows up on the ruins of the old, weak, and vain pride of youth. Then, it was a pride of learning, or of affection; now, it is a pride of indifference. Then, the world proved bleak, and cold, as

contrasted with his shining dreams; and now, he accepts the proof, and wins from it what he can.

The man of the world puts on the method, and measure of the world: he studies its humors. He gives up the boyish notion of a sincerity among men, like that of youth: he lives, to seem. He conquers

such annoyances as the world may thrust upon him, in the shape of grief, or losses, like a practised athlete of the ring. He studies moral sparring.

With somewhat of this strange vanity growing on you, you do not suffer the heart to wake into life, except in such fanciful dreams as tempt you back to the sunny slopes of childhood.

In this mood, you fall in with Dalton, who has just returned from a year passed in the French Capital. There is an easy suavity, and graceful indifference in his manner that chimes admirably with your humor. He is gracious, without needing to be kind. He is a friend, without any challenge or proffer of sincerity. He is just one of those adepts in world tactics, which match him with all men, but which link him to none. He has made it his art to be desired, and admired, but rarely to be trusted. You could not have a better teacher!

Under such instruction, you become disgusted for the time, with any effort, or pulse of affection, which does not have immediate and practical bearing upon that success in life, by which you measure your hopes. The

dreams of love, of romantic adventure, of placid joy, have all gone out, with the fantastic images, to which your passionate youth had joined them. The world is now regarded as a tournament, where the gladiatorship of life is to be exhibited at your best endeavor. Its honors and joy, lie in a brilliant pennant, and a plaudit.

Dalton is learned in those arts which make of action —not a duty, but a conquest; and sense of duty has expired in you, with those romantic hopes, to which you bound it,--not as much through sympathy, as ignorance. It is a cold, and a bitterly selfish work that lies before you,-to be covered over with such borrowed show of smiles, as men call affability. The heart wears a stout, brazen screen; its inclinations grow to the habit of your ambitious projects.

In such mood come swift dreams of wealth ;-not of mere accumulation, but of the splendor, and parade, which in our western world are, alas, its chiefest attractions. You grow observant of markets, and estimate per centages. You fondle some speculation in your thought, until it grows into a gigantic scheme of profit; and if the venture prove successful, you follow the tide tremulously, until some sudden reverse throws you back upon the resources of your professional employ.

But again, as you see this and that one wearing the blazonry which wealth wins, and which the man of the

world is sure to covet,-your weak soul glows again with the impassioned desire; and you hunger, with brute appetite, and bestial eye-for riches. You see the mania around you; and it is relieved of odium, by the community of error. You consult some gray old veteran in the war of gold, scarred with wounds, and crowned with honors; and watch eagerly for the words and the ways, which have won him wealth.

Your fingers tingle with mad expectancies; your eyes roam-lost in estimates. Your note-book shows long lines of figures. Your reading of the news centres in the stock list. Your brow grows cramped with the fever of anxiety. Through whole church hours, your dreams range over the shadowy transactions of the week or the month to come.

Even with old religious habit clinging fast to your soul, you dream now, only of nice conformity, comfortable faith, high respectability; there lies very little in you of that noble consciousness of Duty performed,of living up to the Life that is in you,-of grasping boldly, and stoutly, at those chains of Love which the Infinite Power has lowered to our reach. You do not dream of being, but of seeming. You spill the real essence, and clutch at the vial which has only a label of Truth. Great and holy thoughts of the Future,shadowy, yet bold conceptions of the Infinite, float past you dimly, and your hold is never strong enough to