d let literature alone. It is one of the most uncertain
things. To-day you may suit, to-morrow a chap comes along with some new
fandango or summersault of high art, and the world leaves everybody to
run after him, and you are thrown over. A man cannot earn his salt
unless he has the _entree_ of the initiated ring. As for journalism, you
may hammer at that for twenty years before you get a position."

Poor Fred went back to his room sorely depressed. It was a quiet, clean
room in a second-rate hotel, for which he paid twelve dollars a week.
There he sat and brooded, until taking up the paper one morning he saw
the arrival of one of his old professors at the "Grand Union." Perhaps
he might put him in the way of something. So he plucked up heart, and
went to call.

Professor Dennison received him very cordially, and expressed the
warmest sympathy for the loss of his father and his fortune. He listened
attentively to the young man's desires, and answered in suavest of
tones.

There were so many applications: every avenue seemed full. Young lawyers
and doctors, finding no opening, had gone back to teaching, and the
college-graduates of every year swelled this number. He would bear it in
mind, and see what he could do; but he advised his young friend not to
build too high hopes. "If I could make a place I should put you in it at
once," he said kindly, just as he said it to a dozen others.

It was so everywhere. There were no copyists, translators, or writers
needed. The clerkships were overcrowded. It was not that there were too
many doing one thing, but everything,--too many people in the world.
Could the Malthusian doctrine be right, after all?

He dropped into his brother-in-law's office one morning, and, though he
hated to ask a favor of him, discussed in a rather fragmentary and
abashed way the possibility of getting any thing to do; and a fortnight
after, Mr. Minor sent him word of a broker who wanted a clerk, salary
fifty dollars per month.

It was better than nothing. Then, too, it was a beginning, although he
could imagine more congenial employments. It did not look much like hard
times, to note the immense amount of stocks and bonds that passed
through the hands of this great house.

Just at this period Irene returned. A fine, stately girl, with the
indescribable air that foreign society gives. Yet she seemed haughty,
bitter, and satirical; and it came out presently that she and Gertrude
had quarrelled over