'll see and give him a pleasant honeymoon." And with
these words, uttered with an almost savage malevolence, he passed out
into the street.

Joe Raper's daily life was a path on which the sunlight seldom fell; but
this day it seemed even darker than usual, and as he sat and wrote, many
a heavy sigh broke from him, and more than once did he lay down his pen
and draw his hand across his eyes. Still he labored on, his head bent
down over his desk, in that selfsame spot where he had spent his youth,
and was now dropping down into age unnoticed and unthought of. Of those
who came and went from that dreary room, who saw and spoke with him, how
many were there who knew him, who even suspected what lay beneath that
simple exterior! To some he was but the messenger of dark tidings, the
agent of those severe measures which Fagan not unfrequently employed
against his clients. To others he seemed a cold, impassive, almost
misanthropic being, without a tie to bind him to his fellow-man; while
not a few even ascribed to his influences all the harshness of
the "Grinder." It is more than likely that he never knew of, never
suspected, the different judgments thus passed on him. So humbly did he
think of himself, so little disposed was he to fancy that he could be
an object of attention to any, the chances are that he was spared this
source of mortification. Humility was the basis of his whole character,
and by its working was every action of his simple life influenced. It
might be a curious subject of inquiry how far this characteristic was
fashioned by his habits of reading and of thought. Holding scarcely
any intercourse with the world of society, companionless as he was,
his associates were the great writers of ancient or modern times,--the
mighty spirits whose vast conceptions have created a world of their
own. Living amongst them, animated by their glorious sentiments, feeling
their thoughts, breathing their words, how natural that he should have
fallen back upon himself with a profound sense of his inferiority! How
meanly must he have thought of his whole career in life, in presence of
such standards!

Upon this day Joe never once opened a book; the little volumes which
lay scattered through his drawers were untouched, nor did he, as was
his wont, turn for an instant to refresh himself in the loved pages of
Metastasio or of Uhland. Whenever he had more than usual on hand, it was
his custom not to dine with the family, but to eat