mbroidered and lived, where she cooked and washed and ironed, where
she nursed Columbia, their daughter, one glance at all this, made with
the heart and the understanding, would--ah! _might_, have been to some
of them worth more than all Dexter's pleasant stones, and all the
contents of the shop, and all the profits the flag-maker would ever make
by trading.

For I can hardly believe, though this story be but of "_common_ life,"
when I take up the newspapers and glance along the items I am
constrained to doubt, that such people as Silas and Jessie live in every
house, in every alley, lane, and street, in every square and avenue, on
every farm, wherever walls inclose those divine temples of which
Apostles talked as belonging to God, which temples, said they, are holy!
I can hardly believe that Love, void of fear and of selfishness, speaks
through all our domestic policy, and devises those curious arrangements,
political, theological, social, whose result has approval and praise, it
may be, in the regions of outer darkness.

Dark faces, whose sleekness hides a gulf of waters more dead than those
of the dreadful Dead Sea, rise between me and the honest, brave face of
Silas,--dreary flats, whose wastes are not figured in utter barrenness
by the awful African deserts, where ranks upon ranks of women, like
Jessie at least in love and fidelity, must stand, or--"where is the
promise of His coming?"

The daughter of Silas and Jessie was called Columbia in honor of some
valiant enterprise, nautical or other, which charmed the patriotic
spirit of the father; and as he was not a fighting man or a speaking
man, he offered this modest comment on the brilliant event by way of
showing his appreciation.

Columbia Dexter was a great favorite with the children of Salt Lane for
various reasons, and among them this, that in all parades and
processions she supplied the banners. Columbia's friend of friends was
Silas, son of Andrew Swift,--and thus we come among the children of the
neighbors.

They were not dependent on Salt Lane for a play-ground. They had the
Long Wharf. Ships from the most distant foreign shores deposited their
loads of freightage there, and the children were free to read the
foreign brands, to guess the contents, and to watch the sailors,--free
to all brain-puzzling calculations, and to clothes-soiling,
clothes-rending feats, among the treasures of the ship-hold and the
wharf: no mean privileges, with the roar of oc