ced, at first very spirited, and then gradually
slacking off, as the price mounted above the means of the neighboring
farmers. The chief aspirant was a stranger, a well-dressed man with
a lawyer's air, whom nobody knew. After the usual long pauses and
passionate exhortations, the hammer fell, and the auctioneer, turning to
the stranger, asked, "What name?"

"Jacob Flint!"

There was a general cry of surprise. All looked at Jacob, whose eyes and
mouth showed that he was as dumbfoundered as the rest.

The stranger walked coolly through the midst of the crowd to Samuel
Flint, and said, "When shall I have the papers drawn up?"

"As soon as you can," the old man replied; then seizing Jacob by the
arm, with the words, "Let's go home now!" he hurried him on.

The explanation soon leaked out. Samuel Flint had not thrown away his
wealth, but had put it out of his own hands. It was given privately to
trustees, to be held for his son, and returned when the latter should
have married with his father's consent. There was more than enough to
buy the Whitney place.

Jacob and Susan are happy in their stately home, and good as they are
happy. If any person in the neighborhood ever makes use of the phrase
"Jacob Flint's Journey," he intends thereby to symbolize the good
fortune which sometimes follows honesty, reticence, and shrewdness.

CAN A LIFE HIDE ITSELF?

I had been reading, as is my wont from time to time, one of the many
volumes of "The New Pitaval," that singular record of human crime and
human cunning, and also of the inevitable fatality which, in every
case, leaves a gate open for detection. Were it not for the latter fact,
indeed, one would turn with loathing from such endless chronicles
of wickedness. Yet these may be safely contemplated, when one has
discovered the incredible fatuity of crime, the certain weak mesh in
a network of devilish texture; or is it rather the agency of a power
outside of man, a subtile protecting principle, which allows the
operation of the evil element only that the latter may finally betray
itself? Whatever explanation we may choose, the fact is there, like a
tonic medicine distilled from poisonous plants, to brace our faith in
the ascendancy of Good in the government of the world.

Laying aside the book, I fell into a speculation concerning the mixture
of the two elements in man's nature. The life of an individual is
usually, it seemed to me, a series of RESULTS, the processe