aratively inexperienced as you are, my dear young
friend, did you never observe how little, very little, confidence, there
is? I mean between man and man--more particularly between stranger and
stranger. In a sad world it is the saddest fact. Confidence! I have
sometimes almost thought that confidence is fled; that confidence is the
New Astrea--emigrated--vanished--gone." Then softly sliding nearer, with
the softest air, quivering down and looking up, "could you now, my dear
young sir, under such circumstances, by way of experiment, simply have
confidence in _me_?"

From the outset, the sophomore, as has been seen, had struggled with an
ever-increasing embarrassment, arising, perhaps, from such strange
remarks coming from a stranger--such persistent and prolonged remarks,
too. In vain had he more than once sought to break the spell by
venturing a deprecatory or leave-taking word. In vain. Somehow, the
stranger fascinated him. Little wonder, then, that, when the appeal
came, he could hardly speak, but, as before intimated, being apparently
of a retiring nature, abruptly retired from the spot, leaving the
chagrined stranger to wander away in the opposite direction.

CHAPTER VI.

AT THE OUTSET OF WHICH CERTAIN PASSENGERS PROVE DEAF TO THE CALL OF
CHARITY.

----"You--pish! Why will the captain suffer these begging fellows on
board?";

These pettish words were breathed by a well-to-do gentleman in a
ruby-colored velvet vest, and with a ruby-colored cheek, a ruby-headed
cane in his hand, to a man in a gray coat and white tie, who, shortly
after the interview last described, had accosted him for contributions
to a Widow and Orphan Asylum recently founded among the Seminoles. Upon
a cursory view, this last person might have seemed, like the man with
the weed, one of the less unrefined children of misfortune; but, on a
closer observation, his countenance revealed little of sorrow, though
much of sanctity.

With added words of touchy disgust, the well-to-do gentleman hurried
away. But, though repulsed, and rudely, the man in gray did not
reproach, for a time patiently remaining in the chilly loneliness to
which he had been left, his countenance, however, not without token of
latent though chastened reliance.

At length an old gentleman, somewhat bulky, drew nigh, and from him also
a contribution was sought.

"Look, you," coming to a dead halt, and scowling upon him. "Look, you,"
swelling his bulk out before him