s into
the hotel stable and slowly pursued his way across the public plot or
area, past the old square brick Methodist church, already lighted
brightly for a special evening service, though it was a week-day. He
passed next the small, echoing market-house and the Episcopal church,
and court-house yard. Every thing he saw had at that moment the
appearance of something so very vivid and real that it frightened him.
Yonder was the spot where, with other boys, he had burned tar-barrels
on election nights; up a lane the jail where he had seen the prisoners
flatten their noses against the bars to beg tobacco; a tall Lombardy
poplar at a corner stood stolid except at its summit, where a portion
of the foliage whispered with a freshening sound. How still; as if
every thing was in suspense like him--the favorite of the old town
for so many years, and soon to become the possessor of its most
beautiful and virtuous woman!

He sounded the knocker at the door of the square, solid brick mansion,
built while all acknowledged the King of Britain here, and in whose
threshold General Washington had stood more than once. His father
admitted him directly into a prim, wainscoted room with a
square-angled stairway in the corner leading above; a thick rag carpet
was on the floor; the furniture was mahogany and hair-cloth; on the
wall were portraits of the Whaleys or Whalleys, back to that regicide
who fled from the vengeance of King Charles's sons, and, escaping many
perils in New England, lived unrecognized on this peninsula.

Judge Whaley had lighted a large oil lamp, and its shade threw the
flame upon his strong magisterial face, wherein grief and
righteousness seemed as highly blent as in some indigent republican
Milton or Pym.

"My father," said Perry Whaley with the tender tone habitual to him,
"I have consulted your wishes as well as my desire. Marion Voss will
be my wife."

"It is well, my son," replied Judge Whaley, placing upon his nose his
first pair of silver spectacles. "You are entitled to so much beauty
and grace on every ground of a dutiful youth and agreeable person, and
of talents which will make both of you a comfortable livelihood."

"Father, with so great a change of relations before me, I desire to
obtain your whole confidence."

Perry's voice trembled; the Judge sat still as one of the brazen
andirons where the wood burned with a colorless flame in the
fireplace. The father took off the spectacles and laid them