efactor of mankind; but, being a woman, how proud and
happy I should be to follow in the footsteps of such a good and glorious
being, and hear the blessings bestowed upon his name."

I spoke with earnestness, and my cheeks glowed with enthusiasm. I felt
the clasp of his hand tighten as he drew me closer to his side.

"You have been thinking," he said, in his peculiarly grave, melodious
accents, "that I am leading a self-indulging, too luxurious life?"

"Not you--not you alone, dearest Ernest; but both of us," I cried,
feeling a righteous boldness, I did not dream that I possessed. "Do not
the purple and the fine linen of luxury enervate the limbs which they
clothe? Is there no starving Lazarus, who may rebuke us hereafter for
the sumptuous fare over which we have revelled? I know how generous, how
compassionate you are; how ready you are to relieve the sufferings
brought before your eye; but how little we witness here! how few
opportunities we have of doing good! Ought they not to be sought? May
they not be found everywhere in this great thoroughfare of humanity?"

"You shall find my purse as deep as your charities, my lovely
monitress," he answered, while his countenance beamed with approbation.
"My bounty as boundless as your desires. But, in a great city like this,
it is difficult to distinguish between willing degradation and
meritorious poverty. You could not go into the squalid dens of want and
sin, without soiling the whiteness of your spirit, by familiarity with
scenes which I would not have you conscious of passing in the world.
There are those who go about as missionaries of good among the lowest
dregs of the populace, whom you can employ as agents for your bounty.
There are benevolent associations, through which your charities can flow
in full and refreshing streams. Remember, I place no limits to your
generosities. As to your magnificent plans of establishing asylums and
public institutions for the lame, the halt, and the blind, perhaps my
single means might not be able to accomplish them,--delightful as it
would be to have an angel following in my footsteps, and binding up the
wounds of suffering humanity."

He smiled with radiant good-humor at my Quixotic schemes. Then he told
me, that since he had been in the city he had given thousands to the
charitable associations which spread in great lifegiving veins through
every part of the metropolis.

"You think I am living in vain, my Gabriella," he said, r