The determination and energy with which Gerald Devoe had entered on his new career, had won for him friends among practical men, and when he left England it was with recommendations that insured his success. It was a fortunate circumstance for Mr. and Mrs. Devoe that Mr. Trevanion required a farm-steward on their arrival, for in him and his wife they found liberal employers, and persons of true Christian benevolence, who, having discovered the superiority of their minds and manners to their present station, hesitated not to receive them into their circle of friends, when a knowledge of their past history had acquainted them with their claims on their sympathy. Howsoever valuable the friendship of persons at once so accomplished and so excellent was to Mr. and Mrs. Devoe, for their own sakes, they prized it yet more for their Lilian's. She was their only child, and their poverty lost its last sting when they saw her linked arm in arm with young Anna Trevanion, the companion of her lessons and her sports. They could not have borne to see her, so lovely in outward form, and with a mind so full of intelligence, condemned either to the dreariness of a life without companionship, or to the degradation of association with the rude and uncultivated. That this feeling was wholly unconnected with any false views of their own position, or vain estimation of the claims derived from their birth and former condition, was evident from their readiness to receive into their friendly regards those in their present sphere in whose moral qualities they could confide, and who did not repel their courtesies by a rude and coarse manner. There was one of this latter class who held a place in their esteem not less exalted than that occupied by Mr. Trevanion himself. This was a Scotchman, living within two miles of Mr. Trevanion's seat, who found at once an agreeable occupation and a respectable support in a garden, from which he supplied the markets of New-York with some of their choicest vegetables, and its drawing-rooms with some of their choicest bouquets. Mr. Grahame was one who, in those early ages when physical endowments constituted the chief distinction between men, might have been chosen king of the tribe with which he had chanced to be associated. Even now, in this self-styled enlightened age, his tall and stalwart frame, his erect carriage, his firm and vigorous step, his broad, commanding brow, his bright, keen eye, and the firm, frank expression of his whole face, won from every beholder an involuntary feeling of respect, which further acquaintance only served to deepen. With little of the education of schools, he was a man of reading, and, what schools can never make, he was a man of thought, and of that sober, practical good sense, and those firm, religious principles which are the surest, the only true and safe guides in life. Mrs. Grahame was a gentle and lovely woman, with an eye to see and a heart to feel her husband's excellences.