is head again upon his bosom.

"It is about _him_," continued Wilkins, "that I have been thinking this
evening. I really take a deep interest in his welfare, and wish I knew
how to guide him. For his sake I wish my own heart was more disciplined,
that I was not so utterly incapable."

"Don't let such thoughts as these prevent you from using your influence
with my poor brother, Wilkins. I am too young, too weak, too
inexperienced, to control him. He would naturally scorn the advice of
one so much younger; but _you_, oh! don't let too lowly an opinion of
yourself deprive Arthur of the counsel and guidance he so much needs."

"Ah! Guly, you don't know me. I might tell him how he should do; but my
example, if he should ever chance to see it, would disgust him with my
advice. Had it been different when I first came here, I might now be a
better man. I was an orphan, came here from the North, had no soul in
this vast city to love or care for me, and for five years I have lived
here loveless and lonely, save when with those companions which a
friendless being is almost sure to fall in with here; and I can turn to
no one, feeling that they care for me."

"Wilkins, I love you; indeed, I love you as a brother."

"I believe you, Guly; though we are so different; though my cherishing
you is like the lion mating with the lamb, still I believe in my heart
the honest love I feel for you, God has blest me by causing you to
reciprocate. I have been a better man since I first held you here on my
heart. A better man, Heaven knows!"

"Wilkins, in all the five years you have been here, do you mean to say
Mr. Delancey has never asked you to his house, or noticed you any more
than he does now?"

"I have never been asked to enter his door, Guly, any more than you
have. He would as soon, I suppose, turn a herd of swine into his
drawing-room, as to ask his clerks there. He is very proud."

"That isn't pride, Wilkins; it is meanness. A truly proud man would
adopt the contrary course, I am sure; and so attach all his employees
to himself, and to his interests."

"Ah! he never thinks of that. His negroes get better treatment than his
clerks, by far; and there isn't a soul among them but what loves him
dearly, and would die for him, I don't doubt, at any moment. So you see
he can be kind, strange as it may seem."

"It is strange, Wilkins. Mr. Delancey is a man I cannot understand or
appreciate. I don't think I like him at all."

"He cer