s ran back to that other chamber where once sweet sleep always
greeted him,--to the overhanging boughs that rustled in the evening air
at the window,--to the shaded street that stretched away between the
silent houses,--to the song of the katydids, chattering their noisy
chorus,--to the golden noons when light feet tripped along the village
walks,--to the sunny smiles of Rose,--to the kindly entreaty of good
Mrs. Elderkin,--and more faintly, yet more tenderly, than elsewhere, to
a figure and face far remote, and so glorified by distance that they
seem almost divine, a figure and a face that are somehow associated with
the utterance of his first prayer,--and with the tender vision before
him, he mumbles the same prayer and falls asleep with it upon his lip.

Only on his lip, however,--and the next day, when he steals a half-hour
for a stroll upon Broadway with that dashing girl, Miss Sophie Bowrigg,
(she is really a stylish creature,) he has very little thought of the
dreamy sentiments of the night before, which seemed for the time to keep
his wilder vagaries in subjection, and to kindle aspirations toward a
better life. It is doubtful, even, if he did not indulge in an artful
compliment or two to the dashing Miss Sophie, the point of which lay in
a cleverly covered contrast of herself with the humdrum manners of the
fair ones of Ashfield. Yet, to tell truth, he is not wholly untouched by
certain little rallying, coquettish speeches of Miss Sophie in respect
to Adele, who, in her open, girl-like way, has very likely told the full
story of Reuben's city attentions.

Reuben had, indeed, been piqued by the French girl's reception of his
patronage, and he had been fairly carried off his feet in view of her
easy adaptation to the ways of the city, and of her graceful carriage
under all the toilet equipments which had been lavished upon her, under
the advice of Mrs. Brindlock. A raw boy comes only by long aptitude into
the freedom of a worldly manner; but a girl--most of all a French girl,
in whom the instincts of her race are strong--leaps to such conquest in
a day. Of course he had intimated to Adele no wonder at the change; but
he had thrust a stray glove of hers into his pocket, counting it only a
gallant theft; and there had been days when he had drawn out that little
relic of her visit from its hidden receptacle, and smoothed it upon his
table, and pressed it, very likely, to his lips, in the same way in
which youth of n