Among the _habitués_ of Lee house, none were so acceptable to Lucy’s father, as Mr. Ezekiel Clark, a bachelor of fifty, an ex-minister, and now an agent for some “Benevolent Society.” Ezekiel had an immensely solemn face; and behind this convenient mask he was enabled to carry out, undetected, various little plans, ostensibly for the “society’s” benefit, but privately--for his own personal aggrandizement. When Ezekiel’s opinion was asked, he crossed his hands and feet, and fastened his eyes upon the wall, in an attitude of the deepest abstraction, while his questioner stood on one leg, awaiting, with the most intense anxiety, the decision of such an oracular Solomon. Well, not to weary you, the long and short of it was, that Solomon was a stupid fool, who spent his time trying to humbug the religious public in general, and Deacon Lee in particular, into the belief that had _he_ been consulted before this world was made, he could have suggested great and manifold improvements. As to Deacon Lee, no cat ever tossed a poor mouse more dexterously than he played with the deacon’s free will; all the while very demurely pocketing the spoils in the shape of “donations” to the “society,” with which he appeased his washerwoman and tailor, and transported himself across the country, on trips to Newport, Saratoga, &c., &c. His favorite plan was yet to be carried out; which was no more or less than a modest request for the deacon’s pretty daughter, Lucy, in marriage. Mr. Lee rubbed his chin, and said, “Lucy was nothing but a foolish little girl;” but Ezekiel overruled it, by remarking that that was so much the more reason she should have a husband some years her senior, with some knowledge of the world, qualified to check and advise her; to all of which, after an extra pinch of snuff, and another look into Ezekiel’s oracular face, Deacon Lee assented. Poor little Lucy! Ezekiel knew very well that her father’s word was law, and when Mr. Lee announced him as her future husband, she knew she was just as much Mrs. Ezekiel Clark, as if the bridal ring had been already slipped on her fairy finger. She sighed heavily, to be sure, and patted her little foot nervously, and when she handed him his tea, thought he looked older than ever; while Ezekiel swallowed one cup after another, till his eyes snapped and glowed like a panther’s in ambush. That night poor Lucy pressed her lips to a faded rose, the gift of Harry Graham; then, cried herself to sleep! Unbounded was the indignation of Lucy’s admirers, when the sanctimonious Ezekiel was announced as the expectant bridegroom. Harry Graham took the first steamer for Europe, railing at “woman’s fickleness.” (Consistent Harry! when never a word of love had passed his moustached lip.)