as I walked towards the
banking-house of Brown and Co. My thoughts were occupied with a far
different theme--one that caused me to press on with an agitated heart
and hurried steps.

The walk was long enough to give me time for many a hypothetic
calculation. Should my letter and the bill of exchange have arrived, I
should be put in possession of funds at once,--enough, as I supposed,
for my purpose--enough to buy my slave-bride! If not yet arrived, how
then? Would Brown advance the money? My heart throbbed audibly as I
asked myself this question. Its answer, affirmative or negative, would
be to me like the pronouncement of a sentence of life or death.

And yet I felt more than half certain that Brown would do so. I could
not fancy his smiling generous John-Bull face clouded with the
seriousness of a refusal. Its great importance to me at that moment--
the certainty of its being repaid, and in a few days, or hours at the
farthest--surely he would not deny me! What to him, a man of millions,
could be the inconvenience of advancing five hundred pounds? Oh! he
would do it to a certainty. No fear but he would do it!

I crossed the threshold of the man of money, my spirits buoyant with
sweet anticipation. When I recrossed it my soul was saddened with
bitter disappointment. My letter had not yet arrived--Brown refused the
advance!

I was too inexperienced in business to comprehend its sordid
calculations--its cold courtesy. What cared the banker for my pressing
wants? What to him was my ardent appeal? Even had I told him my
motives, my object, it would have been all the same. That game cold
denying smile would have been the reply--ay, even had my life depended
upon it.

I need not detail the interview. It was brief enough. I was told, with
a bland smile, that my letter had not yet come to hand. To my proposal
for the advance the answer was blunt enough. The kind generous smile
blanked off Brown's ruddy face. It was not business. It could not be
done. There was no sign thrown out--no invitation to talk farther. I
might have appealed in a more fervent strain. I might have confessed
the purpose for which I wanted the money, but Brown's face gave me no
encouragement. Perhaps it was as well I did not. Brown would have
chuckled over my delicate secret. The town, over its tea-table, would
have relished it as a rich joke.

Enough--my letter had not arrived--Brown refused the advance. With Hope
beh