at series of illustrious authors which it was the publisher's
privilege to present to the reading public. In short, he was advised not
to print. That was the net total of the matter, and it was a pang to the
susceptible heart of the poet. He had hoped to have come home enriched
by the sale of his copyright, and with the prospect of seeing his name
before long on the back of a handsome volume.

Gifted's mother did all in her power to console him in his
disappointment.--There was plenty of jealous people always that wanted
to keep young folks from rising in the world. Never mind, she didn't
believe but what Gifted could make jest as good verses as any of them
that they kept such a talk about.--She had a fear that he might pine
away in consequence of the mental excitement he had gone through, and
solicited his appetite with her choicest appliances,--of which he
partook in a measure which showed that there was no immediate cause of
alarm.

But Susan Posey was more than a consoler,--she was an angel to him in
this time of his disappointment. "Read me all the poems over again," she
said,--"it is almost the only pleasure I have left, to hear you read
your beautiful verses." Clement Lindsay had not written to Susan quite
as often of late as at some former periods of the history of their love.
Perhaps it was that which had made her look paler than usual for some
little time. Something was evidently preying on her. Her only delight
seemed to be in listening to Gifted as he read, sometimes with fine
declamatory emphasis, sometimes in low, tremulous tones, the various
poems enshrined in his manuscript. At other times she was sad, and more
than once Mrs. Hopkins had seen a tear steal down her innocent cheek,
when there seemed to be no special cause for grief. She ventured to
speak of it to Master Byles Gridley.

"Our Susan's in trouble, Mr. Gridley, for some reason or other that's
unbeknown to me, and I can't help wishing you could jest have a few
words with her. You're a kind of a grandfather, you know, to all the
young folks, and they'd tell you pretty much everything about
themselves. I calc'late she isn't at ease in her mind about somethin' or
other, and I kind o' think, Mr. Gridley, you could coax it out of her."

"Was there ever anything like it?" said Master Byles Gridley to himself.
"I shall have all the young folks in Oxbow Village to take care of at
this rate! Susan Posey in trouble, too! Well, well, well, it's easier t