ow, and Jamie returned
looking ten years younger. St. Clair seemed prosperous, and Jamie even
mentioned his son-in-law to the other clerks, which was like a boast
for Jamie.

Perhaps at no time had the two Bowdoins thought of him so much. He
lived now as if he were very poor, and they suspected him of sending
all his salary to Mercedes. "It makes no difference raising it;
'twould all go just the same," said Mr. Bowdoin. "Man alive, why
didn't you let him take the money, that day down the wharf, and take
the girl yourself? You used to be keen enough about girls before you
got so bald," added the old gentleman, with a chuckle. He was rather
proud of his own shock of soft white hair.

"That's why you were in such a haste to marry me, I suppose," growled
Mr. James. "You had no trouble of that kind yourself."

"Trouble? It's only your mother protects me. I was going down town in
a 'bus to-day, and there I saw your mother coming out of one of those
Abolition meetings of her cousin, Wendell Phillips,--I told her he'd
be hanged some day,--and there opposite sat an old gentleman, older
than I, sir, and he said to me, 'Married, sir? So am I, sir. Married
again only last week. Been married fifty years, but this one's a great
improvement on the first one, sir, I can assure you. _She brushes my
hair!_' That's more than you can get a wife to do for you, James!"

The father and son chirruped in unison.

"Did you tell my mother of your resolve to try again, sir?"

"I did, I did, and that my next choice was no incendiary Abolitionist,
either. I told her I'd asked her already, to keep her disengaged,--old
Miss Virginia Pyncheon, you know; and, egad! if your mother didn't cut
her to-day in the street! But what do you think of old Jamie?"

"I don't know what to think. He certainly seems very ill."

"Ah, James," said the old man, "why did you laugh that day? If only
the fairy stories about changing old clerks to fairy princes came
true! She could not have married any one to love her like old Jamie."

IX.

Jamie had had no letter for many weeks. The clerks talked about it.
Day by day he would go through the pile of letters on his desk in
regular order, but with trembling fingers; day by day he would lay
them all aside, with notes for their answers. Then he would go for a
moment into the great dark vault of the bank, where the bonds and
stocks were kept, and come out rubbing his spectacles. The clerks
would have forged a l