e,--and by the time he is ready to change that low-hung little chariot
for the hard, angular ebony with raven plumes, I shall be ready to step
into the other plump little vehicle, which is really so nice and cozy."

But we must leave Chip to the easy task of ballooning upward in public
estimation, with his well-inflated bank-account. He was, in fact,
reformed by his great commercial success to this extent, that his vices
had become of the most distinguished and unvulgar grade. He was now
courted by the highest artists in iniquity, and had the means of
accomplishing results that none but men who are known to be really rich
can command. He, therefore, now quitted all vulgar associations, and
determined not to outrage any of the virtues, except under varnish,
gilding, and polish that would keep everything perfectly respectable.
Let him trust to that as long as he can.

Don't talk of the solitude of a night in the primeval forests, however
far from the abodes of man;--the squirrels and the partridges may be
asleep then and there, but the katydids are awake, and, with the support
of contralto and barytone tree-toads, manage to keep up a concert which
cannot fail to impress on you a sense of familiar and friendly company.
Don't talk of the loneliness of a deserted and ruinous castle;--the
crickets have not left it, and, if you don't have a merry time with
their shrill jokes, it will be your own fault. But if you would have a
sense of being terribly alone, come from long residence in some quiet
country-home on the border of a quiet country-village, into the
hurry-skurry of a strange city, just after nightfall. Here is an
infinite brick-and-stone forest, stern, angular, almost leafless. Here
is a vast, indistinguishable wilderness of flitting human shapes, not
one of which takes half so much notice of you as a wild bush would.
Speak to one; it answers without the slightest emotion, and passes on.
Your presence is absolutely no more to any soul of them, provided they
have souls, than if you were so much perfectly familiar granite. You
feel, that, with such attention as you receive, such curiosity as you
excite, you must be there hundreds of years to be either recognized or
missed.

Had you been a stranger in Boston, one moist and rather showery
summer-evening, not a year after the events we have narrated, you might
have been recovered from the sense of loneliness we have described by
observing one pretty female figure hurrying