dred, instead of the fifty I mentioned.
I suppose I may go now?" he added, smiling.

Dandy, still maintaining his gravity, waved his hand with an air of
suitable authority, intimating that the other had permission to depart.
On going out, however, he said, "I beg your pardon, sir, but while
you're abroad, I'd take it as a favor if you'd find out the state o'
the funds. Of course, I'll be investin'; and a man may as well do things
with his eyes open--may as well examine both sides o' the candle-box,
you know. You may go, sir."

"Well," thought the stranger to himself, as he literally went on his way
rejoicing toward Birney's office, "no man in this life should ever yield
to despair. Here was I this morning encompassed by doubt and darkness,
and I may almost say by despair itself. Yet see how easily and naturally
the hand of Providence, for it is nothing less, has changed the whole
tenor of my existence. Everything is beginning not only to brighten,
but to present an appearance of order, by which we shall, I trust, be
enabled to guide ourselves through the maze of difficulty that lies, or
that did lie, at all events, before us. Alas, if the wretched suicide,
who can see nothing but cause of despondency about him and before him,
were to reflect upon the possibility of what only one day might evolve
from the ongoing circumstances of life, how many would that wholesome
reflection prevent from the awful crime of impatience at the wisdom of
God, and a want of confidence in his government! I remember the case of
an unhappy young man who plunged into a future life, as it were, to-day,
who, had he maintained his part until the next, would have found himself
master of thousands. No; I shall never despair. I will in this, as in
every other virtue, imitate my beloved Lucy, who said, that to whatever
depths of wretchedness life might bring her, she would never yield to
that."

"Good news, Birney!" he exclaimed, on entering that gentleman's office;
"charming intelligence! Both are found at last."

"Explain yourself, my dear sir," replied the other; "how is it? What has
happened? Both of whom?"

"Mrs. Norton and Fenton."

He then explained the circumstances as they had been explained to
himself by Dandy; and Birney seemed gratified certainly, but not so much
as the stranger thought he ought to have been.

"How is this?" he asked; "this discovery, this double discovery, does
not seem to give you the satisfaction which I had expe