engaged in his new pursuits.

CHAPTER XXX.

Many Years After.

Old Father Time is a stealthy worker. In youth we are scarcely able to
appreciate his efforts, and oftentimes think him an exceedingly slow and
limping old fellow. When we ripen into maturity, and are fighting our own
way through the battle of life, we deem him swift enough of foot, and
sometimes rather hurried; but when old age comes on, and death and the
grave are foretold by trembling limbs and snowy locks, we wonder that our
course has been so swiftly run, and chide old Time for a somewhat hasty and
precipitate individual.

The reader must imagine that many years have passed away since the events
narrated in the preceding chapters transpired, and permit us to
re-introduce the characters formerly presented, without any attempt to
describe how that long period has been occupied.

First of all, let us resume our acquaintance with Mr. Stevens. To effect
this, we must pay that gentleman a visit at his luxurious mansion in Fifth
Avenue, the most fashionable street of New York--the place where the upper
ten thousand of that vast, bustling city most do congregate. As he is an
old acquaintance (we won't say friend), we will disregard ceremony, and
walk boldly into the library where that gentleman is sitting.

He is changed--yes, sadly changed. Time has been hard at work with him,
and, dissatisfied with what his unaided agency could produce, has called in
conscience to his aid, and their united efforts have left their marks upon
him. He looks old--aye, very old. The bald spot on his head has extended
its limits until there is only a fringe of thin white hair above the ears.
There are deep wrinkles upon his forehead; and the eyes, half obscured by
the bushy grey eyebrows, are bloodshot and sunken; the jaws hollow and
spectral, and his lower lip drooping and flaccid. He lifts his hand to pour
out another glass of liquor from the decanter at his side, when his
daughter lays her hand upon it, and looks appealingly in his face.

She has grown to be a tall, elegant woman, slightly thin, and with a
careworn and fatigued expression of countenance. There is, however, the
same sweetness in her clear blue eyes, and as she moves her head, her fair
flaxen curls float about her face as dreamily and deliciously as ever they
did of yore. She is still in black, wearing mourning for her mother, who
not many months before had been laid in a quiet nook on the estate at