is a delightful
study--so captivating, and such stores of romance! And then those trips
to the Hall offer such relief and variety,--especially just now. It
would be well not to betray your eagerness to go. You can brush your hat
a round or two, and take a peep into the broken bit of looking-glass
over the wash-stand.

You lengthen your walk, as you sometimes do, by a stroll upon the
Battery,--though rarely upon such a blustering November day. You put
your hands in your pockets, and look out upon the tossing sea.

It is a fine sight--very fine. There are few finer bays in the world
than New York Bay,--either to look at, or, for that matter, to sleep in.
The ships ride up thickly, dashing about the cold spray delightfully;
the little cutters gleam in the November sunshine like white flowers
shivering in the wind.

The sky is rich--all mottled with cold, gray streaks of cloud. The old
apple-women, with their noses frostbitten, look cheerful and blue. The
ragged immigrants, in short trousers and bell-crowned hats, stalk about
with a very happy expression, and very short-stemmed pipes; their
yellow-haired babies look comfortably red and glowing. And the trees
with their scant, pinched foliage have a charming, summer-like effect!

Amid it all the thoughts of the boudoir, and harpsichord, and
goldfinches, and Axminster carpets, and sunshine, and Laura, are so
very, very pleasant! How delighted you would be to see her married to
the stout man in the red cravat, who gave her bouquets, and strolled
with her on the deck of the steamer upon the St. Lawrence! What a
jaunty, self-satisfied air he wore; and with what considerate
forbearance he treated you--calling you once or twice Master Clarence!
It never occurred to you before, how much you must be indebted to that
pleasant, stout man.

You try sadly to be cheerful; you smile oddly; your pride comes strongly
to your help, but yet helps you very little. It is not so much a broken
heart that you have to mourn over, as a broken dream. You seem to see in
a hundred ways, that had never occurred to you before, the marks of her
superior age. Above all it is manifest in the cool and unimpassioned
tone of her letter. Yet how kindly withal! It would be a relief to be
angry.

New visions come to you, wakened by the broken fancy which has just now
eluded your grasp. You will make yourself, if not old, at least gifted
with the force and dignity of age. You will be a man, and build no mo