the denizens of the Points, he
would walk away, with a sigh. "Fashionable wives," he would mutter, his
eyes filling with tears, "are never constant. Ah! they have deluged the
world with sorrow, and sent me here to seek a hiding place."

CHAPTER XXIII.

IN WHICH THE VERY BEST INTENTIONS ARE SEEN TO FAIL.

The city clock strikes one as Mrs. Swiggs, nervous and weary, enters the
House of the Foreign Missions. Into a comfortably-furnished room on the
right, she is ushered by a man meekly dressed, and whose countenance
wears an expression of melancholy. Maps and drawings of Palestine,
Hindostan, and sundry other fields of missionary labor, hang here and
there upon the walls. These are alternated with nicely-framed engravings
and lithographs of Mission establishments in the East, all located in
some pretty grove, and invested with a warmth and cheerfulness that
cannot fail to make a few years' residence in them rather desirable than
otherwise. These in turn are relieved with portraits of distinguished
missionaries. Earnest-faced busts, in plaster, stand prominently about
the room, periodicals and papers are piled on little shelves, and bright
bookcases are filled with reports and various documents concerning the
society, all bound so exactly. The good-natured man of the kind face
sits in refreshing ease behind a little desk; the wise-looking lean man,
in the spectacles, is just in front of him, buried in ponderous folios
of reports. In the centre of the room stands a highly-polished mahogany
table, at which Brother Spyke is seated, his elbow rested, and his head
leaning thoughtfully in his hand. The rotund figure and energetic face
of Sister Slocum is seen, whisking about conspicuously among a bevy of
sleek but rather lean gentlemen, studious of countenance, and in modest
cloth. For each she has something cheerful to impart; each in his turn
has some compliment to bestow upon her. Several nicely-dressed, but
rather meek-looking ladies, two or three accompanied by their knitting
work, have arranged themselves on a settee in front of the wise man in
the spectacles.

Scarcely has the representative of our chivalry entered the room when
Sister Slocum, with all the ardor of a lover of seventeen, runs to her
with open arms, embraces her, and kisses her with an affection truly
grateful. Choking to relate her curious adventure, she is suddenly
heaped with adulations, told how the time of her coming was looked to,
as an e