This little speech had been carefully prepared in anticipation of just such a scene; and Dudley intended to speak it boldly and well, as the preface to an eloquent effort in behalf of virtuous love and a cottage ornée. But, alas! between the resolution and the act lay a wide difference. He faltered out the first sentence, and the last words died, suffocated in his throat; and he stood before the cold, calm face of the judge, more like a criminal than an advocate. Mr. Wickley was quite astonished and puzzled at Judge Fletcher’s not following up his bold, virtuous sentence of marriage or expulsion. Mary’s father was dismissed with vague promises of justice, and Dudley locked in his room. After which, Judge Fletcher, wife, and tutor, went into solemn deliberation with closed doors. The result of that consultation was a determination to send Dudley into honorable exile. “He is old enough to enter upon the study of a profession,” said the judge, “and we will place him in Doctor Calomel’s office, and let him live with his aunt, Mrs. Col. Hays. He will see something of the world, and be cured of absurdities in behalf of love and poverty.” The dim twilight of the next early dawn saw Dudley seated by the driver upon the stage, and, as he felt the huge affair swing under him, the horses trotting briskly along, the cool fresh breeze fanning his cheeks, and birds making vocal the road-side, the sensation was not that of the utter desolation that fell upon the heart of the little girl who saw the blushing morn and merry birds through tears. The one had change of scene, and elegant solitude, leisure and quiet to minister to his miseries—the other choked down her grief before a harsh unfeeling parent, and turned to weary drudgery, lightened by no kind words, no looks of gentle sympathy. Save us from our friends should read—Lord, save us from our natural guardians.