rt that felt
like my own; but as one whom nature has not gifted, poor, ignoble, and
unlettered, am I not lucky to have found a little world of joyous hearts
and merry voices, who care for me % and speak of me, ay, and who would
give me a higher place in their esteem than to Jean Paul, or Goethe
himself?"

The friends had but time to pledge each other in a parting glass, when
the stage drove up by which Hans was to return to Baden. A few hurried
words, half cheering, half sorrowful, a close embrace, one long and
lingering squeeze of the hand,

"Farewell, kind Hanserl!"

"God guide thee, Franz!" and they parted.

Frank stood in the little "Platz," where the crowd yet lingered,
watching the retiring "Post," uncertain which, way to turn him.
He dreaded to find himself all alone, and yet he shrank from new
companionship. The newly risen moon and the calm air invited him to
pursue his road; so he set out once more, the very exercise being a
relief against his sad thoughts.

Few words are more easily spoken than "He went to seek his fortune;"
and what a whole world lies within the narrow compass! A world of
high-hearted hopes and doubting fear, of noble ambition to be won, and
glorious paths to be trod, mingled with tender thoughts of home and
those who made it such. What sustaining courage must be his who dares
this course and braves that terrible conflict the toughest that ever man
fought between his own bright coloring of life and the stern reality of
the world! How many hopes has he to abandon, how many illusions to
give up! How often is his faith to be falsified and his trustfulness
betrayed; and, worst of all, what a fatal change do these trials impress
upon himself, how different is he from what he had been!

Young and untried as Frank Dalton was in life, he was not altogether
unprepared for the vicissitudes that awaited him; his sister Nelly's
teachings had done much to temper the over-buoyant spirit of his nature,
and make him feel that he must draw upon that same courage to sustain
the present, rather than to gild the future.

His heart was sorrowful, too, at leaving a home where unitedly they
had, perhaps, borne up better against poverty. He felt for his own heart
revealed it how much can be endured in companionship, and how the burden
of misfortune like every other load is light when many bear it. Now
thinking of these things, now fancying the kind of life that might lie
before him, he marched along. Then