vised for the relief of such cases of distress? Is there no law to prevent such flagrant breaches of the peace of mind? The minor miscreant who robs you of your purse, or he who illegally restricts your personal liberty in the outer world is condignly punished by the laws of the land; but what are their crimes compared with the

be dutifully polite to ladies present who have invited you to their parties, and ingratiatingly attentive to those who may invite you hereafter; and then, when supper-time arrives, to offer her your arm; to minister to her wants; to struggle fiercely for her refection; and afterward to thrill through three blissful hours of "German cotillion" with her as partner. You pass her, there-offense against the nobler inner man, involved fore, with a bow and an expressive glance, and enter upon your routine of "business," artfully contriving, as midnight draws near, to remain unencumbered by confining your civilities to such fair beings as are certain to be claimed by other admiring swains.

in these fashionable garrotings?

Many people consider it a point of good-breeding to present each of their visitors to all the rest; and, consequently, every new-comer on their "reception days" is formally retailed out to some dozen or fifteen previous arrivals. This Finally, the supper-room doors swing open, may occasionally produce some awkward comand the reward of all your toil seems close at plications. Cardovan and I fell out some ten hand; your are hastening to where Euphrasia's years or more ago. (Oh, Sophronia! there are delicate kid glove awaits your protecting broad-scars which never, never fade.) From that time cloth, when the hostess arrests your progress, to this a mortal enmity has been between us. and, like a civil highwaywoman, robs you of We glare defiance at each other in the streets, your birth-right of free agency, and remorselessly and each is to the other gall and wormwood; snatches from your grasp the prize for which and yet scarce a month passes wherein we are you have waited and served so long. She not introduced by some well-meaning person at "wants to introduce you to a very sweet girl whose house we chance to meet. To me the who doesn't know many gentlemen, and who oft-repeated form has lost its bitterness; but I has no partner for the 'German.' Would you can see his coarser nature wince under the chillkindly see that she gets some supper?" Re-ing courtesy with which I recognize his presence. sistance is futile. You know that there is no By continued practice I have succeeded in imescape; so, with a gulp of resignation, you suf-parting to my "delighted to make your acquaintfer yourself to be handed over to the custody of an immature seraph with pronounced collarbones and a freckled complexion, whose vocabulary consists mainly of monosyllables, and whose comprehension has never soared higher than the level of a school history. She feeds voraciously at supper (how different from the delicate daintiness of Euphrasia!), and when the "German" commences you discover that she dances execrably, and puts water on her hair. To add to your anguish, Euphrasia (doubt-resign the sphere of lovely woman's inspiring inless reserving herself for you) is for some time without a partner, but finally dances with the brutal Bliffins, whom you watch, eight couples away, grinning and basking in the light of her smile, while you, the legitimate heir to that happiness, are exiled to the arid promontories and sterile plains of the seraph's mind and body.

ance, Sir," a barb which I can see rankle in his plebeian soul; and my adolescent anguish is amply revenged.

A trustful mind, unlearned in the world's vile ways, might innocently imagine that by refraining from the outer intercourse of society, and adopting an eremitical course of life, these persecutions could be avoided. Vain delusion! You may forego the privilege of breathing the free air of heaven; you may shun your fellow-men, and

fluence; you may forget old acquaintances, but you can not escape new ones. Popular solicitude will be aroused by your absence from your wonted resorts, and objectionable interlopers will "just drop in to see how you are," each one "taking the liberty to present a friend who happened to be passing with him." Should you be so utterly unfortunate as to possess a tastefully furnished house, a valuable picture, a fine group of statuary, a cabinet of coins or conchology, or any other attraction to public curiosity, your fate is sealed. "Not at home" is an entirely ineffective barrier against inroads. Every one who has ever had the most distant intercourse with you will bring scores of country connections to examine the interesting features of your domicile, and they troop from garret to cellar, hunt

But if an “arbitrary arrest,” such as the foregoing, be reprehensible, even when made by the high official authority of the hostess, what language can adequately anathematize the still more aggravated instances of kidnapping constantly perpetrated in "society" by brothers, cousins, uncles, and guardians of unattractive debutantes? The hand that traces these lines has scores of times been clasped with hypocritical fervor by felonious men who sought a vic-ing you down in any place of concealment you tim to whom they might transfer the incubus of some forlorn female relative, and whom, once lodged within her desperate clutch, they would leave to his fate throughout the weary night, pursuing the pleasures of their own emancipation in heartless indifference to the languishing captive.

Can no species of social habeas corpus be de

may have resorted to, and forcing upon your hospitality a crowd of prying inquisitors, each of whom will probably within the week presume upon this formality to act as cicerone to a party of his own selection.

At your club you are pursued by the same relentless ill-fortune. A visitor from another city, perhaps, brings a letter of introduction to you,

and as the simplest mode of disposing of him, you inscribe his name upon the list of club guests. Now, one would suppose that to the most ordinary comprehension it would be self-evident that the fact of your neglecting to avail yourself of the facilities offered by club life to form the acquaintance of some of your fellow-members of long standing, must necessarily arise from disinclination on one side or the other; but the very first demonstration of gratitude on the part of your invited guest is to introduce you to the man whom, of all others, you have most sedulously striven not to know.

Illustrations of the nuisance under consideration could be multiplied ad infinitum; but I trust that enough has already been said to impress upon my kind readers the importance of speedy and thorough reform; not precluding the inauguration of an intercourse between persons likely to prove mutually agreeable, but branding the want of tact which imagines it necessary to inflict an abominable formality upon even the worst assorted members of the human family.

SEALED PROPOSALS.

"Then, if your father is willing, I don't know what's to hinder," was the answer he made, God bless him!

I spoke to father and mother that same night. Father was the first to answer me, and he only put me off. He said-and I can see at this moment how afraid he was to speak for fear that whatever he said on such a business would be the wrong thing, not the right

"There's your mother-what does she say about that ?"

I turned at that to mother. She was looking at me with a kind of surprise she couldn't get the better of. She didn't want to say it outright, but father's words seemed to make it necessary she should, and so she said:

"I was in hopes, Benjamin, that it would be put into your heart some day to be a preacher." That was all. She wouldn't have said any more if she had thought that my mind would be changed by her talk. That was the SPIRIT's work, not hers. She would take upon herself none of His rights and powers, not even to bring about the thing on which her heart was set.

She had never spoken about this wish before; but I found, after a minute or two, when I could

NE day I was in a carver's shop doing a lit- collect myself, that it did not very much surprise

he knew my father, and where he belonged, and so he always made me welcome there) when I overheard Mr. Price talking with somebody about his boy-I don't mean his son, for Mr. Price was an old bachelor, but the boy who worked in his shop-about his having gone away unexpectedly, and how much he missed him, when it flashed upon me that here was the place I ought to be, and not playing at toy-making for Miss Amelia any longer, but getting a good trade, and one that would be agreeable to me, like this of carving. Oh, such a vision of Work as rose up before my mind when this thought took possession of me! I seemed to leap into manhood and labor at once, and buildings which never have been built, and shops full of toys which have since been filled, rose up before me, and made me as happy as I suppose any fellow ever was.

He was

I stood there fussing with the lathe, pretending to work, until the men had done talking, and the man who didn't belong there had gone away, and Mr. Price was left alone. looking down at his work over his spectacles, carving a rose from a block of wood, all as if the thing was alive, and he got the fragrance of its breath. It was a good thing he wasn't looking at me, for I had time to recover myself, and think again; and when I had thought again I saw no reason for changing my mind, and so spoke out.

"Mr. Price, is there any other boy coming here to take John Tresham's place?"

"I don't know, Benjamin," said he. "Take me, Sir," said I. "You, Ben-what for? Do you want to learn carving and starving, eh?"

"I've got to be a carver," said I; "my mind is made up to that."

a familiar sound, as if I had heard her speak them before, but I never had. That made me slow about saying,

"Mother, I don't feel called that way; and I do feel called into Mr. Price's shop. You want me to be upright and honest before God and man- -that's what you've taught me; and I know I have more fitness for carving than for preaching. Don't there seem to be a leading?"

"Yes," said my mother, "I can see it, Benjamin ;" and there she dropped the business. It was a disappointment, but I could bear to think of it, feeling sure it saved her from a greater; and she met this in a way she met all the advances of Providence, with a gentleness, not of resignation (I should hate the word if it thrust itself for use in here), a gentleness of trust, that made the Lord love her for it, I am sure.

After a while my father said,

"Is it all settled between you two?"
Mother answered, "Yes."

"How?"

"Benjamin will go to Mr. Price." I couldn't say one word.

Then said he, "Be sure, Ben, you know what you're about now. If you are going to be a carver, be one. Stick to the business. Learn it all-every thing you can about it. Be a thorough-going carver, instead of a thoroughgoing gardener, for that's what I expected you

to be.'

So you see I had three pretty good jobs on my hands when I went with Mr. Price. I had to satisfy my mother, my father, and myself, that my choice was the right one. I must preach the gospel of Beauty better than I could have preached the gospel of Providence or of

Nature, and must work my way to the place I meant to fill; so that in future times, whenever any body spoke of carving-from architectural decoration to a lady's coral ornaments-my name would rise up, because there should be none like it for deserving or for honor. Well, does any young worker aim at less? Pity his mean ambition!

Sometimes when I went home (my father's cottage was in one corner of the Higbee grounds) I saw little Amelia. She lived out of doors in the summer, and had the laying-out and decoration of some of the grounds that were being brought under cultivation from their rough wild state. She thought she had, I should say; for her father gave her the privilege, and my father confirmed it; only you need not suppose that he yielded his judgment, and taste, and authority, as head-gardener and keeper of the grounds, to hers. But he always conceded that she had a wonderful "sense of fitness" and of form, and said he would as soon talk over his plans about the grounds with her as with half the gardeners with whom he was acquainted.

The next thought was, of what consequence to her where I am or what I do?

After it was settled we should go-and it was not settled in my mind until I had father's and mother's consent, for I was their only son and child-I gave every spare moment to working on the bracelets.

One of the last evenings of my stay there I was walking round the grounds, with the trinkets in my pocket, when I saw a party of ladies and gentlemen on the lawn. Of course, I thought, Miss Amelia is with them. And just as certainly it was no place for me, for these people were her father's guests, and nothing beside business would ever take me through the grounds where these were strolling for pleasure.

I turned back in the path to retrace my steps when I saw the party; and there was Miss Amelia coming on foot up the carriage-road, with her hat in her hand and her muslin skirt gathered up on her right arm from the dew. She was the fairest creature that God ever made!

"You here, Benjamin!" said she, stopping to say the words. Then she stopped a little longer. "What a long time it is since I have seen you on the grounds!"

"It will be a longer time, I am afraid," I said, "before I shall see the lawn looking so beauti

It was a great satisfaction to be able to show my patterns to Miss Amelia, and get her to praise them, and talk over the designs. I be lieve she thought I had performed a miracle when I showed her some ornamental devices of my invention. It wasn't long after that Mr.ful again." Higbee sent a chest of tools to father's, and said "Why I think it looks so every night," said they were for me. Miss Amelia was to be thanked for that, I knew. When I thanked her, she said, when I had leisure, she expected I would make some little ornament for her out of my own head.

Be sure I found the leisure! I made two bracelets for her, one of pearl and one of coral. This work took time enough. Perhaps they wouldn't have been done so soon, or so well, but for the spur I had, hearing of Mr. Price's advantageous offer to begin business in New York. He had made, through me, the acquaintance of an architect of reputation, who was often down at Mr. Higbee's place. I mean Mr. Lefarge, who was building the great cathedral.

This gentleman left some orders one day for things I had to execute. I knew when they were finished, if I never knew it before, that I was at the right kind of business.

she.

"What do you mean? There isn't any thing going to happen, is there?" "Nothing to any one but me," I said; "and I am only going away."

"Going away, Ben! Where are you going?" said she.

"We are going to move our factory to town, that's all. We have so much to do. And we are going to-”

"When?" she said; and she spoke as if she didn't like the plan at all.

"In a day or two. Mr. Lefarge is hurrying us very much."

"Oh, are you going to work for him?" she asked, as if the business now looked different, and a singular expression appeared upon her face that was remarkable and unaccountable to me.

I answered her question, and then I told her that I had finished some little ornaments for her, and that I hoped she would like them, for it wasn't probable I should be able to do any more in a great while.

"Oh, let me see them-quick, Ben!" said she. "They expect me back every moment."

It wasn't long after this that Mr. Price began to ask me a good many questions about my father and mother; and at last out came the question whether I could be spared away from home, off and on, as well as not. I made a leap for life, when I'd taken one good look at the man, and told him if he was going away I must go where he went. That pleased him, for he said right out, as if his own mind were now set-ly, I may say. tled on the business, "Then we must be pick- "Oh, how elegant!" She fastened them ing up without losing any more time. Lefarge round her wrists, and her face looked pale, I wants us in New York on his cathedral. The job will be a fortune to us; for we shall do our work well, and that's the true beginning."

Among my first thoughts about this business was this one: "What will Miss Amelia say?"

I showed her the two bracelets, one of pearl, the other of pink coral. The flowers were love

thought, as she bent over them, and told the flowers, as if they had been consecrated beads.

"If I keep your work you must keep mine," said she; and she took a ring from her finger, and a pin from the lace ruff she wore about her

neck, and laid the dainty things on the cover of the box which had held her bracelets, and so presented them.

I was amazed, and she could not help seeing it. She now seemed softly pleased. Her face paled and flushed again-that adorable face! She was going through a good many emotions and excitements new to her.

sort.

"I shall leave this kind of work for you," ," said I. "Yours is twice as fine as mine is. I'll carve church ornaments, and things like that Did you truly make these things ?" "Things!" said she, half in sport-yet there was a jealous sound in her voice. One is a rose, the other a forget-me-not. Can't you see it, when it's carved right there before your eyes?" "Yes, to be sure," said I, humbly enough. "If you are going to do larger work so am I," she said. "I am going to carve in stone; and if you only carve in wood, my work will last longest."

"We shall be good rivals then," said I; "for I'm going to work in stone, too, whenever I choose."

"We shall always be good friends, and never rivals," said she, looking away from me. "Good-by, Ben. I must go. See, I am wearing your bracelets."

upon his canvas, and into the heart of the world. To work miracles. More than I have heard accredited by Mother Church.

I don't know why, but it came into my head to wonder why Miss Amelia couldn't be content with being; it seemed to me almost a misfortune that she too should be disturbed, with all the rest of the world, by this passion for doing. While I stood there in a dream, I felt Mr. Lefarge beside me, though I had neither heard nor seen him come.

"Ah, Clews!" he said, "busy yet? Always at work, I suppose. Well, have you decided when you will be in town?"

He had heard our decision about that already. But I told him it over again. When I stopped he said, "Yes," and went right on, as if that wasn't the point after all.

"I have been looking at some pretty ornaments you carved," said he; "very pretty, indeed! Do you do much at that sort of thing?"

"Never any more of that sort than you've seen," I said, "if you mean the bracelets I made for Miss Amelia."

"You don't mean to confine yourself to that business, though, ever?"

"Indeed no," I said; and I was so angry at the way he asked the question that I did a foolish thing, I'll own--for I did it just for vanity— I pulled Miss Amelia's box from my pocket and showed him, him the dainty ring and brooch. The next moment I repented.

I felt proud when I saw them fastened round her wrists, but I should have felt a greater pride if she had put them in her pocket. But no; she was going on from me to join the party of ladies and gentlemen on the lawn, who would. all admire my work of course, and wonder at ly it-think it "very ingenious.'

They would not know as well that I carried away with me trinkets over which her brain had toiled as well as her little hands.

We two workers belonged to spheres as different as those represented by the Court of St. James and that of the King of Dahomey, or Griswold's Republican Court and some others since that time.

I went into a print-shop that evening to get rid of the rain, but more particularly some fellows who were talking on the sidewalk, and in a recess I found a little picture of Raphael in his studio, where he is making a copy of the face and attitude of a peasant woman, who is holding her child, for Madonna del Sisto.

While I was examining the print it seemed to me that I could see the end of the sitting. Raphael having made his study, there was nothing more for the woman to do but to walk out from his studio, and down the sunny street, with her baby in her arms, to the poor little cottage where she lived-and goodness knows what sort of husband was waiting there for her to come cook his dinner! She could afford to loiter. She had most likely done no more that day than wait the painter's leisure and his mood. And what if she never did another thing in this world? She had been. She had grown up to this womanhood. She had borne this child. And the great painter-that young man who was dead at thirty-seven-had put their faces

"Where did you get these?" said he, quickenough, and his brown face turned white as brown could turn.

"I didn't carve them myself," said I, mad at myself as well as him by this time.

"I know that," said he. "How came you by them though?"

I was going to give him the answer I thought such a question deserved, and that would have been a wise way of beginning business with an employer like him! I said, "Honestly, any way, Mr. Lefarge.'

"Oh, I don't doubt that." Then he added, as if he hated to say the words, yet couldn't help saying 'em, "I suppose Miss Amelia gave them to you. I saw her wearing such trinkets."

I bowed my head, and hated him from that

moment.

"I'll give you any price you've a mind to ask for them," said he pretty soon, looking mighty indifferent though.

"What for?" said I.

"Curiosities, of course. The work of a clever little girl."

"Oh, they're more to me than that," said I. "She wouldn't sell my bracelets."

He laughed at that boast, and the laugh made me madder than I was before.

"I don't suppose she would do such a vulgar thing," said he.

And that was his way of setting her up in heaven, and casting me down to-dust.

I tried to have some talk with Miss Amelia

before we moved away. But there was no op- | broken the silence, I believe, if I hadn't said at portunity. Well, we went to New York, and last, began our cathedral decorations, and Mr. Lefarge was satisfied with them. I put that down first among the results, because no amount of praise our work obtained elsewhere gave us the same satisfaction his did. He beat all for making you think while you were with him, though you might change your mind about that the minute his back was turned, that his opinion and praise were worth more than any other person's.

A gentleman who was in the same car with us got out at our station. He stood on the platform looking round him as if he didn't know which way to go; but the moment he saw father he advanced toward us. And that I have Become of them! Do seen done a hundred times, and over. It is you mean Mr. Higbee's family?" what is called attraction, I suppose. Father was full of it.

I looked through the sheet. My father was now seated in one of our new leather-cushioned chairs by the window; he had dropped into it—and he told me, afterward, he was through just for the sake of support, and not for the luxury of the thing. He waited, while I looked the paper up and down, and never would have