certain that none remained, he rose
and contemplated their crumpled and creased forms with calm disdain.

"Oh, dear! you thought, some of you, that you might possibly be
poetry, you miserable weaklings and beguilers! You are not even
verses--are hardly rhymes. You are, one and all, without sense or
sound." His brow grew severe in its condemnation. "There! take
that! and that! and that!"--stamping them with his foot; "poor
broken-backed, halting, limping, club-footed, no-going, unbodied,
unsouled, nameless things. How do you like it? What business had you
to be? You had no right to be born--never were born; had no capacity
for birth; you don't even amount to failures! Words are wasted on you:
let me see if you'll burn." Lighting one, he threw it upon the hearth.
"It does! I am surprised at that. I rather like it. How blue and faint
the flame is--it hardly produces smoke, and"--watching until it was
consumed--"no ashes. Too ethereal for smoke and ashes. Let me try the
rest;" and he did.

He then opened a small drawer and took out a portfolio, in which were
various bits of bristol-board and paper, covered with crayon and pen
sketches, and some things in water-colors--all giving evidence of a
ready hand which showed some untaught practice. Whether his sense of
justice was somewhat appeased, or because he regarded them with more
favor, or reserved them for another occasion, was, perhaps, uncertain.
Singularly enough, on each of them, no matter what was the subject,
appeared one or more young girl's heads--some full-faced, some
three-fourths, and more in profile--all spirited, all looking alike,
and each having a strong resemblance to Julia Markham. Two or three
were studied and deliberate attempts. He contemplated these long and
earnestly, and laid them away with a sigh. They undoubtedly saved the
collection.

That night he wrote to Henry:

"DEAR BROTHER,--I am back, of course. It is an unpleasant way of
mine--this coming back. It was visionary for me to try a fall with the
sciences at Hudson. You would have been too many for them; I ran
away. I found Colton sick at Cincinnati. The Texan Rangers had left.
I looked into the waters of the Ohio, running and hurrying away
returnlessly to the south-west. Lord, how they called to me in their
liquid offers to carry me away! They seemed to draw me to linger, and
gurgle, and murmur in little staying, coaxing eddies at my feet, to
persuade me to go.

"How near one seems to that