sums received for
literary productions, he managed to bring up and support his small
family. At times, when some unexpected expenses had to be incurred, as I
have hinted, poverty seemed to poor Mrs. Myrtle a very great hardship,
and such was their situation the year Augustus was born.

He was the only son, and the hope of the parents centred on him. It was
settled that he should be sent to the best schools and to a first-class
college. He had, perhaps, rather more than ordinary ability, the power
to display to the best advantage the talents and acquirements he did
possess, together with attractive manners, which, though reserved, were
pleasing. He was slight, gracefully formed, and a little above the
ordinary height. He had a dark complexion, a face thin and colorless,
with fine, large, black eyes.

When I say Augustus Myrtle sought only the intimacy of the rich and well
bred, you must not suppose he was a toady, or practised obsequiously.
Not at all. He mingled with his associates, assuming to be one of
them--their equal. True, his want of money led to desperate economical
contrivances behind the scenes, but on the stage he betrayed by no sign
that affairs did not flow as smoothly with him as with his companions.
In all this, he had in his mother great support and encouragement. Her
relations were precisely of the stamp Augustus desired to cultivate, and
this gave him many advantages. As usually happens, he found what he
sought. By the aid of the associations he had formed with so much
assiduity, to say nothing of his own personal recommendations, he
married a nice girl, the only child of a widowed lady _in the right
'set' and with sixty thousand dollars_, besides a considerable
expectancy on the mother's decease. Shortly after, he became rector of
St. Jude's, the most exclusive 'aristocratic' religious establishment in
New York.

At this present period, the Rev. Augustus Myrtle was but thirty-five,
and, from his standing and influence, he considered it no presumption to
look forward to the time when he should become bishop of the diocese.

His health was excellent, if we may except some _very_ slight
indications of weakness of the larynx, which had been the cause of his
making two excursions to Europe, each of six months' duration, which
were coupled with an appropriation of twenty-five hundred dollars by his
indulgent congregation to pay expenses.

* * * * *

While Mr. Myrtle