ed.

"You know the five hundred dollar note that he paid last week?" said
Mr. Edgar, speaking to his son, and alluding to Hartman, who had just
left.

"I do."

"Well, I heard something about that note this morning that really
touched my feelings. Hartman spoke of the circumstances to a friend,
and that friend--betraying, I think, the confidence reposed in
him--related it to me, not knowing that we were the parties to which
the note had been paid. On that note he came near failing again."

"Indeed! And yet you have just sold him freely!"

"I have. But such are my feelings that I would risk five thousand
dollars to keep him up. I know him to be a man of strict honesty."

"There is no doubt of that," replied the son.

"You remember his niece, I suppose?" said old Mr. Edgar.

"Oh, very well."

"When Mr. Hartman's circumstances became reduced, she, of her own free
choice, relieved him of the burden of her support, and assumed the
arduous and toilsome duties of a governess in one of our wealthy
families, where she has ever since been. On the evening before the note
of which I spoke was due, she called to see her uncle, and found him in
trouble. For some time he concealed the cause but so earnest was she in
her affectionate entreaties to know why he was unhappy, that he told
her the reason. He was again embarrassed in his business, and, for want
of a few hundred dollars, which one, circumstanced as he was, could not
borrow, was in danger of being again broken up. To his astonishment,
Jessie announced the fact that she had the sum he wanted, saved from
her salary as governess. He at first refused to take it, but she would
listen to no denial."

"Noble girl!" exclaimed the young man.

"She must be one in a thousand," said Mr. Edgar.

"She is one in ten thousand!" replied the son, enthusiastically. "And
yet worth like hers is passed over for the tinsel of wealth. Do you
know in whose family she is governess?"

"I do not."

"I can tell you. She is in the family of Mr. Freeman."

"Ah!"

"Yes. You know they gave a party last night?"

"I do."

"Miss Hampton was not present."

"As much as might have been inferred."

"And yet there was no young lady in the room her equal in all that goes
to make up the character of a lovely woman."

"Well, my son," replied the old gentleman, "all I have to say is, that
I look upon this young lady as possessing excellencies of character far
outweighing all the endowments of