course, and save our goods."

"It's too late," answered my clerk. "B----called a little after one
o'clock, and gave notes for the amount of his bill. He was to leave
in the five o'clock line for Boston."

I turned my face a little aside, so that Edward might not see all
the anxiety that was pictured there.

"You look very sober, Mr. Mayflower," said my good wife, gazing at
me with eyes a little shaded by concern, as I sat with Arty's head
leaning against my bosom that evening; "as sober as baby looked this
morning, after his fruitless shadow chase."

"And for the same reason," said I, endeavoring to speak calmly and
firmly.

"Why, Mr. Mayflower!" Her face betrayed a rising anxiety. My assumed
calmness and firmness did not wholly disguise the troubled feelings
that lay, oppressively, about my heart.

"For the same reason," I repeated, steadying my voice, and trying to
speak bravely. "I have been chasing a shadow all day; a mere phantom
scheme of profit; and at night-fall I not only lose my shadow, but
find my feet far off from the right path, and bemired. I called Arty
a foolish child this morning. I laughed at his mistake. But, instead
of accepting the lesson it should have conveyed, I went forth and
wearied myself with shadow-hunting all day."

Mrs. Mayflower sighed gently. Her soft eyes drooped away from my
face, and rested for some moments on the floor.

"I am afraid we are all, more or less, in pursuit of shadows," she
said,--"of the unreal things, projected by thought on the canvas of a
too creative imagination. It is so with me; and I sigh, daily, over
some disappointment. Alas! if this were all. Too often both the
shadow-good and the real-good of to-day are lost. When night falls
our phantom good is dispersed, and we sigh for the real good we
might have enjoyed."

"Shall we never grow wiser?" I asked.

"We shall never grow happier unless we do," answered Mrs. Mayflower.

"Happiness!" I returned, as thought began to rise into clearer
perception; "is it not the shadow after which we are all chasing,
with such a blind and headlong speed?"

"Happiness is no shadow. It is a real thing," said Mrs. Mayflower.
"It does not project itself in advance of us; but exists in the
actual and the now, if it exists at all. We cannot catch it by
pursuit; that is only a cheating counterfeit, in guilt and tinsel,
which dazzles our eyes in the ever receding future. No; happiness is
a state of life; and it comes only to