here is the elder K----,
at once so simple in heart and so acute in mind. Cannot you read both in
his face? There is his son; and there is D. B. O----, and O. H----, and
G----, and J----. What can I tell you of any of them that you do not
know already?"

"Who are these?" asked Annie, pointing to two heads, placed somewhat
aloof from the rest, and near each other. "That older face is so
benevolent in its expression, and the younger has so noble a
physiognomy, and looks with such reverence on his companion, that I am
persuaded they have a history beyond that which belongs to the world. Is
it not so?"

"It is. Those are Mr. Cavendish and Herbert Latimer. They have a
history, and I will give it you if you desire it, though, thus
impromptu, I must do it very imperfectly I fear."

"No apologies," said Col. Donaldson. "Begin, and do your best; no one
can do more."

"Than _my_ best," said Mr. Arlington, with a smile, "thank you. My
narrative will have at least one recommendation--truth--as I have
received its incidents from Latimer himself."

Without further preliminary, Mr. Arlington commenced the relation of the
following circumstances, which he has since written out, by Annie's
request, at somewhat greater length for insertion here, giving it the
title of

THE MAIN CHANCE.

Herbert Latimer was only twenty when, having passed the usual
examination, he was admitted, by a special act of the legislative
assembly of his native State, to practise at the bar. Young as he was,
he had already experienced some of the severest vicissitudes of life.
His father had been a bold, and for many years a successful merchant,
and the young Herbert, his only child, had been born and nurtured in the
lap of wealth and luxury. He was only sixteen--a boy--but a boy full of
the noble aspirations and lofty hopes that make manhood honorable, when
his father died. Mr. Latimer's last illness had been probably rendered
fatal by the intense anxiety of mind he endured while awaiting
intelligence of the result of a mercantile operation, on which, contrary
to the cautious habits of his earlier years, he had risked well nigh all
he possessed. He did not live to learn that it had completely failed,
and that his wife and child were left with what would have seemed to him
the merest pittance for their support.

The character and talents of young Latimer were well known to his
father's friends, and more than one among them offered him a clerkship
on