fast enough, and they have no
dead man's curve. Folks in Oldburyport die a natural death. They are
not killed by the cable or run over by bicycles, or, what is quite as
bad, hurried and worried to death by the rush of life, as people are
in New York. I declare I felt as if I had lived an age in the month I
was there; but then, why shouldn't I, with so much happening and such
exciting and distressing things too! It seems as if everything went
crooked. Now, if my advice had been taken in the beginning--but nobody
ever will take advice except in Oldburyport.

It makes me wrathy to think of Winifred Anstice marrying that Mr.
Flint, who is so dangerously irreligious, and Philip Brady marrying
Nora Costello, who is so injudiciously religious, and then poor
Leonard Davitt throwing away his life for that pert, forward, foolish
Tilly Marsden, who has gone back to her shop-counter, pleased, for all
I know, with all the excitement she raised! If corporal punishment in
early youth were strictly adhered to, there would be fewer Tilly
Marsdens in the world. In Oldburyport, I am happy to say, we believe
in corporal punishment.

Poor Leonard! I have not got over his death yet. It was all so sad and
so unnecessary. But I am not sure that he is not better off as he is
than he would have been married to that girl. His mother took to her
bed when she heard the news, and the doctor thinks she will not live
long. So Tilly Marsden will have that death on her conscience, too, or
would if she had a conscience to have it on.

There might very easily have been a third, for they said the first
bullet which Leonard fired must have come within an inch of Jonathan
Flint's head. I should have supposed such an escape must have softened
even him. I thought it was a good time to impress the lesson, so I
pointed to the bullet buried in the wall.

"Mr. Flint," said I, "can you look at that and not believe in
Providence?"

Instead of being convinced, as I thought he would, he only pointed to
Leonard's body lying under it and said nothing.

I hate these people who are given to expressive silences. It takes one
at a disadvantage. Silence is the only argument to which there is no
answer. At the time I could not think of anything to say to him,
though, since I got home, I've thought of ever so many. It is easier
to think, I find, in Oldburyport.

Except for the last terrible days I had a beautiful time in the city,
and as I look over my diary I am qui