f plump, truffled partridges. This
day they had reached perfection, and were to have been eaten by no
less a person than the cook himself. These cherished birds did he now
actually offer to make over to his eloquent and sympathetic
acquaintance. Balder was deeply moved, and accepted the gift on one
condition,--that the donor should share the feast! "When a man serves
me up his own heart,--truffled, too,--he must help me eat it," he
said, with emotion. The condition imposed was, after faint resistance,
agreed to; the other episodes of the bill of fare were decided upon,
and the Italian and the Scandinavian were to dine together that
afternoon.

It still lacked something of the dinner-hour when Mr. Helwyse came out
through the dark passage-way of the Beacon Hill Bank, and paused for a
few moments on the threshold, looking up and down the street. Against
the dark background he made a handsome picture,--tall, gallant,
unique. The May sunshine, falling, athwart the face of the gloomy old
building, was glad to light up the waves of his beard and hair, and
to cast the shadow of his hat-brim over his forehead and eyes. The
picture stays just long enough to fix itself in the memory, and then
the young man goes lightly down the worn steps, and is lost along the
crowded street. Such as he is now, we shall not see him standing in
that dark frame again!

Wherever he went, Balder Helwyse was sure to be stared at; but to this
he was admirably indifferent. He never thought of speculating about
what people thought of Mr. Helwyse; but to his own approval--something
not lightly to be had--he was by no means indifferent. Towards mankind
at large he showed a kindly but irreverent charity, which excused
imperfection, not so much from a divine principle of love as from
scepticism as to man's sufficient motive and faculty to do well. Of
himself he was a blunt and sarcastic critic, perhaps because he
expected more of himself than of the rest of the world, and fancied
that that person only had the ability to be his censor!

If the Christian reader regards this mental attitude as unsound, far
be it from us to defend it! It must, nevertheless, be admitted that
whoever feels the strong stirring of power in his head and hands will
learn its limits from no purely subjective source. The lesson must
begin from without, and the only argument will be a deadly struggle.
Until then, self-esteem, however veiled beneath self-criticism, cannot
but increas