of a poor clergyman in Boston. While there, he took up the
study of divinity, and, before long, was fully qualified for ordination.
But, at this time, he fell, all at once, dangerously ill, and lay at
death's door.

"He owed his life to the care that the daughter of the clergyman took of
him. She was a sweet, gentle girl, a good deal younger than he; but she
grew to love him--perhaps because she had saved him from death. When he
recovered, they were married, and found a great deal of happiness; there
was no more passionate love, for him, of course; but he could feel
gratitude, and tenderness, and a steady and deep affection. They had two
children, and when they were five or six years old, the parents moved to
the country, and took a house in an out-of-the-way village."

"Is that all?" demanded Bressant, eying the professor's face with great
intentness.

"There's not much more. One of the first persons the minister--such he
was now--met, on his entrance into the village, was the woman he had
loved first--the wife of his false friend--she whom he had long believed
dead. She had settled, several years before, in this place, whither he
had unawares followed her. In an interview--the first for nearly half a
lifetime--all the old errors and falsehoods were cleared up. She told
him how her husband's heartlessness and insolent indifference had made
her leave him; and how, for the sake of her son, and partly also out of
pride, she had made no attempt to repossess herself of the fortune with
which she had endowed her husband at their marriage. The hardest of all
had been to leave her son, whom she loved with her whole heart; but he
was sickly, and she dared not expose him to the chances of privation and
hardship, such as she expected to endure. With some three thousand
dollars in her pocket, she had come to America, and since then had
never heard a word of those she had left, nor had they of her.

"About three years after his arrival, the minister's wife died. He took
his two children, and went with them to New York, where they staid
nearly a year; and the widow of the old Knickerbocker found them out,
and was as cordial as ever. But finally the minister decided to return
to his country dwelling, and there he still remains."

As Professor Valeyon concluded, he looked toward his auditor, having
been conscious, especially during the latter part of the narrative, of
the peculiar magnetic sensation which the steady glance of the