ves to the young. Permit me simply to ask, what
you will frankly answer--Can you have seen in our quiet life abroad, or
under the roof of our Italian friends, any one you prefer to me?"

"No, indeed, no!" murmured Helen. "How could I!--who is like you?" Then,
with a sudden effort--for her innate truthfulness took alarm, and her very
affection for Harley, childlike and reverent, made her tremble lest she
should deceive him--she drew a little aside, and spoke thus: "Oh, my dear
guardian, noblest of all human beings, at least in my eyes, forgive,
forgive me if I seem ungrateful, hesitating; but I cannot, cannot think of
myself as worthy of you. I never so lifted my eyes. Your rank, your
position--"

"Why should they be eternally my curse? Forget them and go on."

"It is not only they," said Helen, almost sobbing, "though they are much;
but I your type, your ideal!--I!--impossible! Oh, how can I ever be any
thing even of use, of aid, of comfort to one like you!"

"You can, Helen--you can," cried Harley, charmed by such ingenuous modesty.
"May I not keep this hand?"

And Helen left her hand in Harley's, and turned away her face, fairly
weeping. A stately step passed under the wintry trees.

"My mother," said Harley L'Estrange, looking up, "I present to you my
future wife."

REMINISCENCES OF PRINTERS, AUTHORS, AND BOOKSELLERS IN NEW-YORK.(8)

BY JOHN W. FRANCIS, M.D., LL. D.

When the great defender of the Constitution delivered the oration at
Bunker Hill, he pointed to the just completed monument and exclaimed,
"There stands the Orator of the Day." In humble imitation of that
significant act, I also, in attempting to illustrate the interests and the
meaning of this occasion, would point you, gentlemen, to the fact of your
presence here to-night--to the union at one banquet of printers, editors,
publishers, authors, and professional men--as the best evidence of the
importance and attractiveness of the occasion. The art of printing, among
other inestimable blessings, has fused together the most productive
elements of society; it has established a vital relation between intellect
and mechanics, between labor and thought. I see before me in this assembly
those who have achieved enduring literary fame, and those who are the
present guides of public opinion. I see them side by side with the men who
have just put their thoughts and sentiments into a bodily form and
disseminated them on the wings of the press. The