Harry Bradford sat musing by the window and was apparently lost in thought, when a sudden knock at his door aroused him; but before he could bid the applicant enter, Fred Stanley burst into the room. “It’s all arranged, Harry,” said he with a glee in which, however, his companion did not seem at all to participate. “So I supposed,” replied Harry, quietly; “such an affair is not likely to remain long unfinished in your hands.” “And why should it, pray?” inquired Stanley, a little nettled at his friend’s want of enthusiasm. “Oh, it should not, of course,” said Harry; “such matters, after all, are best done when soonest done. Where do we meet?” “On the old battle-ground—Weehawken,” said Stanley; “no place like it.” “No, none like it, indeed! What time have you appointed?” asked Harry. “To-morrow, at sunrise,” replied Stanley. “That’s rather prompt, too,” said Harry, “if one has to take leave of his friends and make his peace with God.” “Bah!” said Stanley, slightingly, “we must not think too much of these things.” “_I_ must not, certainly,” replied Harry, “if I would just now retain my self-possession. We use pistols, I presume?” “Yes, at ten paces;” said Stanley. “A fearful proximity for men of approved courage and skill who are bent on taking each other’s life!” rejoined Harry; then after a pause, he added, “Wilson persists in his challenge, Fred?” “Good G—!” exclaimed Stanley in dismay at what appeared to him a prospect of losing his expected sport, “you are not afraid to meet him Harry?” “No, Stanley,” said Harry, “not in your sense of the word. So long as consequences are limited to myself, I have little thought of fear. But,” he continued—and he spoke in a low tone and with unwonted rapidity, lest some tremulousness of the voice might betray his emotion—“there are other interests, other fears, other considerations—” “Forget them for heaven’s sake, until after to-morrow,” said Stanley, interrupting him, “or you will never acquit yourself with honor. If you have any little affairs to despatch, set about them at once, and don’t fail to be abed and asleep before ten, or you won’t be up in season. I would not have Wilson on the ground before us for the world. Good-bye; I must prepare my pistols, for I see you will never give them a thought;” and away went Fred Stanley as full of bravery, as solicitous for his friend’s honor, and as indifferent about his friend’s distress of mind—as seconds are wont to be. Harry did not move for some minutes after Stanley left him; and when at length he raised his eyes from the floor, his countenance bore an expression of unutterable wo. It was no wonder. He was the only child of a widowed mother, and the affianced lover of the sweetest maid in the land. If he should fall, as he well might, what would become of that mother and of Kate Birney?