ter's own,
Who labours, fights, lives, breathes for him alone,
Unhonour'd falls, unnoticed all his worth,
Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth!"

Min's news did not come all at once.

It was spread over an expanse of many months, during which I was
rambling over the States;--reporting this speaker and that;--studying
"life and character" in every way--from the inspection of negro camp-
meetings, where coloured saints expounded doctrinal views that would
have made Wilberforce shudder, to participating in a presidential
election, wherein I had the opportunity of seeing the inherent
rottenness of the Transatlantic "institution" thoroughly exposed.

When I was thus bustling about, amidst so many varied phases of life, I
could not very well sympathise with the quiet doings of Saint Canon's.

But, on my return to my Brooklyn lodgings, when once more appointed to
regular newspaper work at the office of the journal with which I was
connected in New York, the old home longings returned also as strong as
ever--stronger, as time went on!

I got in the habit of again marking my almanack, as Robinson Crusoe
notched his post, every day; saying to myself the while, that I was
brought one day nearer to my darling as the sun went down; one day
nearer as it rose on the morrow:--one day nearer to the date of my exile
being ended!

I remained in America much longer than I intended.

However, as Mrs Clyde did not carry out her threat of closing our
correspondence at the end of the first year of our quasi-engagement, I
had still Min's dear letters to encourage me and cheer me on.

I do not know what I should have done without them.

There was no benefit to be derived from my going back until the
Government appointment, which the vicar had the promise of for me,
should be vacant. But, this, the wretched old gentleman who continued
to hold it, would not give up until he reached the age of
superannuation, when he would be forced to retire--in which respect he
was not unlike many old field officers in the army, and "flag" ditto in
the navy, who _will_ persist in remaining on the "active list" of both
services long past the age of usefulness, to the prevention of younger
men from getting on!

O "seniority!"

Thou art the curse of all classes of officialdom in England--"civil" and
"military" alike!

By-and-by, however, when my patience had become exhausted, and I was
seriously thinking of starting home with the few hun