nt of
the Beacon Hill Bank. He is a man of refinement and cultivation, a
scholar and a reader, has travelled, and, it is said, could handle a
pen to better purpose than the signing bank-notes. In his earlier
years he studied law, and gained a certain degree of distinction in
the profession, although (owing, perhaps, to his having entered it
with too ideal and high-strung views as to its nature and scope) he
never met with what is vulgarly called success. Fortunately for the
ideal barrister, an ample private estate made him independent of
professional earnings. Later in life, he trod the confines of
politics, still, however, enveloping himself in that theoretical,
unpractical atmosphere which was his most marked, and, to some people,
least comprehensible characteristic. A certain mild halo of
statesmanship ever after invested him; not that he had at any time
actually borne a share in the government of the nation, but it was
understood that he might have done so, had he so chosen, or had his
political principles been tough and elastic enough to endure the wear
and strain of action. As it was, some of the most renowned men in the
Senate were known to have been his intimates at college, and he still
met and conversed with them on terms of equality.

Between law, literature, and statesmanship, in all of which pursuits
he had acquired respect and goodwill, without actually accomplishing
anything, Mr. MacGentle fell, no one knew exactly how, into the
presidential chair of the Beacon Hill Bank. As soon as he was there,
everybody saw that there he belonged. His social position, his
culture, his honorable, albeit intangible record, suited the old bank
well. He had an air of subdued wisdom, and people were fond of
appealing to his judgment and asking his advice,--- perhaps because he
never seemed to expect them to follow it when given (as, indeed, they
never did). The Board of Directors looked up to him, deferred to
him,--nay, believed him to be as necessary to the bank's existence as
the entire aggregate of its supporters; but neither the Board nor the
President himself ever dreamed of adopting Mr. MacGentle's financial
theories in the conduct of the banking business.

Let no one hastily infer that the accomplished gentleman of whom we
speak was in any sense a sham. No one could be more true to himself
and his professions. But--if we may hazard a conjecture--he never
breathed the air that other men breathe; another sun than our