ented bookshelf in common with other
"medicated novels."

Perhaps I have been too hard with Gifted Hopkins and the tribe of
rhymesters to which he belongs. I ought not to forget that I too
introduced myself to the reading world in a thin volume of verses; many
of which had better not have been written, and would not be reprinted
now, but for the fact that they have established a right to a place
among my poems in virtue of long occupancy. Besides, although the
writing of verses is often a mark of mental weakness, I cannot forget
that Joseph Story and George Bancroft each published his little book,
of rhymes, and that John Quincy Adams has left many poems on record, the
writing of which did not interfere with the vast and important labors of
his illustrious career.

BEVERLY FARMS, MASS., August 7, 1891. O. W. H.

THE GUARDIAN ANGEL

CHAPTER I. AN ADVERTISEMENT.

On Saturday, the 18th day of June, 1859, the "State Banner and Delphian
Oracle," published weekly at Oxbow Village, one of the principal centres
in a thriving river-town of New England, contained an advertisement
which involved the story of a young life, and stained the emotions of
a small community. Such faces of dismay, such shaking of heads, such
gatherings at corners, such halts of complaining, rheumatic wagons, and
dried-up, chirruping chaises, for colloquy of their still-faced tenants,
had not been known since the rainy November Friday, when old Malachi
Withers was found hanging in his garret up there at the lonely house
behind the poplars.

The number of the "Banner and Oracle" which contained this advertisement
was a fair specimen enough of the kind of newspaper to which it
belonged. Some extracts from a stray copy of the issue of the date
referred to will show the reader what kind of entertainment the paper
was accustomed to furnish its patrons, and also serve some incidental
purposes of the writer in bringing into notice a few personages who are
to figure in this narrative.

The copy in question was addressed to one of its regular
subscribers,--"B. Gridley, Esq." The sarcastic annotations at
various points, enclosed in brackets and italicised that they may be
distinguished from any other comments, were taken from the pencilled
remarks of that gentleman, intended for the improvement of a member of
the family in which he resided, and are by no means to be attributed to
the harmless pen which reproduces them.

Byles Gridley, A. M.,