The first spring after their marriage Stanhope embarked in business, for he found his salary insufficient for the wants of a family. And for three years he seemed to prosper. But then came reverses. The times were critical; even heavy capitalists could scarcely weather the storm; and, in a word, Stanhope was compelled to fail, after having sunk all he had embarked by heavy losses. Had he been a large trader, and becoming bankrupt, dragged scores into ruin with him, he would have been universally pitied, and perhaps his creditors would have yielded up to him from the wreck of millions a sufficiency for the rest of his life; but as he was only a poor man his case met no commiseration. He determined, however, to pay every debt. The endeavor exhausted almost literally his last dollar. He had barely a sufficiency left to transport his family to the village of ——, having been offered a situation as a clerk in a store in that obscure hamlet. Before leaving the city, however, his sweet wife, believing that under such circumstances her father must relent, had, without informing her husband of her intention, sought admittance at her parent’s mansion, determining to fling herself at his feet, and solicit his forgiveness and aid. But she was repulsed—my pen shakes as I record it—she was repulsed like a common beggar from her own father’s door. Let us hurry on. Have we not often seen how misfortune when it once begins to lower on a man, will sometimes continue its pitiless shower without intermission, until it has laid its victim in his grave? Well! every day beheld Stanhope, in despite of his utmost exertions, sinking lower and lower into distress. His scanty salary barely afforded his family the coarsest food, and even this was lost within a year, and directly after the birth of a daughter, by an illness which incapacitated him from labor, for so long a period that his employer was forced to discharge him, and procure a substitute. At length he recovered; but how fearfully was he in debt! A year’s labor at his late scanty pittance would scarcely discharge his liabilities. Ellen had foreseen this, and ventured to write to her father, but the letter was returned unopened. To add to Stanhope’s distress, after various efforts to procure steady employment, which only resulted in constant disappointment, his furniture was sold under a distress, and his now alarmed creditors falling like vultures on what remained, left him with nothing but the bedding on which they slept, and the clothes which they wore, with the few other articles protected by the law from an execution. These, however, he was soon, forced to dispose of to gain sustenance for his family. In this strait they had found shelter in the crumbling garret, where they now were,—and though a month had elapsed, and every thing they had to part with was sold, Stanhope was still without employment. His wife, after bearing up till nature could endure