any one of these
people was as good as a bond to the others; therefore no papers of
agreement were made out, but Andrew paid down the money, because that
was his way of satisfying himself,--and son Silas was now a partner.

Everybody concerned was so well pleased with this arrangement, that he
whose pleasure in it was specially desired had not the heart to speak
his mind, or to resolve further than that he would do his duty. Indeed,
he soon began to believe that he was satisfied.

Young Silas thought he saw good reason for bringing forward his
partner's motto into fresh conspicuity in these days: he believed in
that motto, he purposed to work by it, but it was not merely his policy
to give his faith manifestation. He made several efforts, after his own
odd, original style, to impress the pretty Columbia with the
significance of that sentiment. Often his talk with the young lady had
the gravity and weight of a moral essay, and she took it well,--was not
impatient,--would answer him as a child, "I know it is so, Silas,"--did
not imagine how much these very lectures cost him, or that he delivered
them with as much inward composure as an orator might be supposed to
feel on the brink of a precipice, where the awful rocks and depths gave
echo to his utterance.

Why should he so much disturb himself on her account?--she was so
studious, so blameless, what great need of this oversight he was
exercising continually?

Young Alexander, now Midshipman Alexander, once a cabin-boy, promoted
step by step on the score of actual merit and brave service
performed,--Midshipman Alexander, son of an old sailor's old widow, who
lived in Salt Lane, to whom Andrew Swift and Silas Dexter and other
well-disposed men had lent a helping hand when poverty had brought her
to some desperate strait,--this young Alexander, who had been coming
home once in every three years since his twelfth birthday, and who in
the course of many years of voyages came to look on Dexter's house as
his home on land, after his mother died,--he interfered with the peace
of Silas Swift.

He returned from service, after every voyage, a taller, stronger,
nobler, wiser, handsomer man. He had a career open before him; he could
not fail of honorable fortune. Every inch a hero Alexander looked, and
was; nobody ever tired of hearing his adventures; no one grew
unbelieving, when he spoke of the future,--all things seemed so possible
to him; and then he was really not possess