ctions of benefits conferred, which
the heart cherishes as an inestimable treasure. There was naught for
the mind to dwell upon, save his public duties, which he, had indeed
discharged respectably, but no more. Another Assistant could fill his
place as well; another exercise the gift of prophecying to the use of
edifying; and other merchants succeed to, his trade. Verily is the
life of man as the track of an arrow in the air; as smoke lost in the
clouds; as a flake of snow that falls upon the water; as a childish
grief, or aught else that is most transient.

But the death of the wicked is a benefit to earth. A gloomy shadow
hath passed away; the blight of its presence will fall no more on the
innocent. The purpose for which he was sent into this world, that from
its joys and its sorrows he might become a nobler being, seems to have
been defeated. But I know not. Pass, then, dark spirit; my eyes seek
not to follow thy track.

The relation which existed between Arundel and Eveline was, of course,
affected by the disclosure of Spikeman on his death-bed--no opposition
being henceforth made to the free intercourse of the two young people.
There were, indeed, some who lamented that the daughter of precious
Edmund Dunning should become the wife of one who had not cast in his
lot with the saints; but then, again, Arundel was no enemy to their
cause, no railing Rabsheka, but a well-behaved and modest youth, who
paid, at least, an outward respect to the customs of the congregation,
and might yet, from the influence of godly Edmund Dunning's child, be
converted into a vessel of grace. Moreover, the story was pretty well
known, and the romantic love which had attracted him from New-England,
and the wrong the two had suffered from Spikeman, worked in their
favor in the hearts of the Puritans. The marked attention which the
generous Winthrop manifested now toward them, seeming as if anxious by
present kindness to atone for former injustice, contributed also not a
little to the feeling; and, honored and beloved, the young couple,
with the sanguine anticipations of youth, looked forward to a
cloudless future. Yet was their happiness, especially that of Arundel,
damped by reflections upon the condition of the Pequot chief and the
lady in the prison, and of the Knight wandering homeless in the
forest, with no place of shelter for his defenseless head save the
wigwams of the friendly savages. Knowing the severity of the
government, the