"You have them already. These are all men whose histories are as well known to the public as to their own families. There is the elder K----, at once so simple in heart and so acute in mind. Cannot you read both in his face? There is his son; and there is D. B. O----, and O. H----, and G----, and J----. What can I tell you of any of them that you do not know already?" "Who are these?" asked Annie, pointing to two heads, placed somewhat aloof from the rest, and near each other. "That older face is so benevolent in its expression, and the younger has so noble a physiognomy, and looks with such reverence on his companion, that I am persuaded they have a history beyond that which belongs to the world. Is it not so?" "It is. Those are Mr. Cavendish and Herbert Latimer. They have a history, and I will give it you if you desire it, though, thus impromptu, I must do it very imperfectly I fear." "No apologies," said Col. Donaldson. "Begin, and do your best; no one can do more." "Than _my_ best," said Mr. Arlington, with a smile, "thank you. My narrative will have at least one recommendation--truth--as I have received its incidents from Latimer himself." Without further preliminary, Mr. Arlington commenced the relation of the following circumstances, which he has since written out, by Annie's request, at somewhat greater length for insertion here, giving it the title of THE MAIN CHANCE. Herbert Latimer was only twenty when, having passed the usual examination, he was admitted, by a special act of the legislative assembly of his native State, to practise at the bar. Young as he was, he had already experienced some of the severest vicissitudes of life. His father had been a bold, and for many years a successful merchant, and the young Herbert, his only child, had been born and nurtured in the lap of wealth and luxury. He was only sixteen--a boy--but a boy full of the noble aspirations and lofty hopes that make manhood honorable, when his father died. Mr. Latimer's last illness had been probably rendered fatal by the intense anxiety of mind he endured while awaiting intelligence of the result of a mercantile operation, on which, contrary to the cautious habits of his earlier years, he had risked well nigh all he possessed. He did not live to learn that it had completely failed, and that his wife and child were left with what would have seemed to him the merest pittance for their support.