om one to another. They consented to delay their
gratification till the evening, that I might have a little time to
arrange my reminiscences; and when "the hours of long uninterrupted
evening" came, and we had

"----stirr'd the fire and closed the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheeled the sofa round,"

and disposed ourselves in comfort for talking and for listening, I gave
them the relation which you will find below under the title of

THE BROTHERS;

OR, IN THE FASHION AND ABOVE THE FASHION.

"Some men are born to greatness--some achieve greatness--and some have
greatness thrust upon them." Henry Manning belonged to the second of
these three great classes. The son of a mercantile adventurer, who won
and lost a fortune by speculation, he found himself at sixteen years of
age called on to choose between the life of a Western farmer, with its
vigorous action, stirring incident and rough usage--and the life of a
clerk in one of the most noted establishments in Broadway, the great
source and centre of fashion in New-York. Mr. Morgan, the brother of
Mrs. Manning, who had been recalled from the distant West by the death
of her husband, and the embarrassments into which that event had plunged
her, had obtained the offer of the latter situation for one of his two
nephews, and would take the other with him to his prairie-home.

"I do not ask you to go with me, Matilda," he said to his sister,
"because our life is yet too wild and rough to suit a delicate woman,
reared, as you have been, in the midst of luxurious refinements. The
difficulties and privations of life in the West fall most heavily upon
woman, while she has little of that sustaining power which man's more
adventurous spirit finds in overcoming difficulty and coping with
danger. But let me have one of your boys; and by the time he has arrived
at manhood, he will be able, I doubt not, to offer you in his home all
the comforts, if not all the elegances of your present abode."

Mrs. Manning consented; and now the question was, which of her sons
should remain with her, and which should accompany Mr. Morgan. To Henry
Manning, older by two years than his brother George, the choice of
situations was submitted. He went with his uncle to the Broadway
establishment, heard the duties which would be demanded from him, the
salary which would be given, saw the grace with which the _elegants_
behind the counter displayed their silks, and satins, and velvets,