sing went with
her.

CHAPTER X

IN WHICH HARRY FARES SUMPTUOUSLY, AND TAKES LEAVE OF THE LITTLE ANGEL

When Harry could no longer see the little angel, he fixed his eyes
upon the ground, and continued to think of her. It is not every day
that a pauper boy sees an angel, or even one whom the enthusiasm of
the imagination invests with angelic purity and angelic affections.

In the records of individual experience, as well as in the history of
the world, there are certain points of time which are rendered
memorable by important events. By referring to a chronological table,
the young reader will see the great events which have marked the
progress of civilized nations from the lowest depths of barbarism up
to their present enlightened state. Every individual, if he had the
requisite wisdom, could make up a list of epochs in his own
experience. Perhaps he would attach too little importance to some
things, too much to others; for we cannot always clearly perceive the
influences which assist in forming the character. Some trivial event,
far back in the past, which inspired him with a new reverence for
truth and goodness, may be forgotten. The memory may not now cherish
the look, the smile of approbation, which strengthened the heart, when
it was struggling against the foe within; but its influence was none
the less potent. "It is the last pound which breaks the camel's back;"
and that look, that smile, may have closed the door of the heart
against a whole legion of evil spirits, and thus turned a life of woe
and bitterness into a life of sunshine and happiness.

There are hundreds of epochs in the experience of every person, boy or
man--events which raised him up or let him down in the scale of moral
existence. Harry West had now reached one of these epochs in his
pilgrimage.

To meet a little girl in the woods, to kill a black snake, and thus
relieve her from a terrible fright, to say the least, was not a great
event, as events are reckoned in the world; yet it was destined to
exert a powerful influence upon his future career. It was not the
magnitude of the deed performed, or the chivalrous spirit which called
it forth, that made this a memorable event to Harry; it was the angel
visit--the kindling influence of a pure heart that passed from her to
him. But I suppose the impatient reader will not thank me for
moralizing over two whole pages, and I leave the further application
of the moral to the discretion of