til I got something certain.

His words, and this amicable settlement of matters between my darling
and myself, awoke a new life in me. I did not despair any longer. I
felt that God had at last heard not only my prayers, but also those of
her, who, I knew, was praying for me at home; and that, if He had not
appeared to grant my former petitions, the answer to them had been
withheld for the all-wise purpose of making me look to Him more
earnestly than I might have done, if prosperity had rewarded my first
effort! Before, I had trusted entirely to myself, never thinking of
appealing to His aid.

Now, I assure you, I could have struggled on to the death--even had
Fortune still gone against me even in America; but, the fickle goddess
alike altered her expression _there_, as circumstances improved for me
_here_, so that, I was not called upon to exercise any further endurance
in adversity.

My temporal troubles ended as my more serious difficulties disappeared--
all being in due accordance with the old adage which tells us that "it
never rains but it pours."

One morning, soon after hearing from England, as I was conning over the
advertisement columns of the _New York Herald_, I chanced on a notice
which immediately caught my eye. An "editor" was wanted, without delay,
at the office of one of the other leading-journals of the city, where
applications were requested from all desirous of taking the "situation
vacant." Who could this have reference to, but me?

I thought so, at all events, and "exploited" the supposition.

I did not allow the grass to grow under my feet, I can assure you.

I hurried off instanter to the address mentioned; and, although
newspaper men of the New World, unlike ours, are uncommonly early birds,
getting up matutinally betimes so as to catch the typical worm--in which
respect they resemble the entire business population of Transatlantica--
I found, on my arrival, that I was the first candidate who had appeared
on the scene.

It was a good omen, for your "live Yankee" likes "smartness;"
consequently, I was sanguine of success.

You may, peradventure, be "surprised to hear" of my thinking myself fit
for such a post, having had such a slight acquaintance with literature
at home?

That did not dissuade me, however, in the least.

I have so great a confidence in myself, that I would really take the
command of the Channel fleet to-morrow if it were offered to me--as Earl
Russell proposed