To begin then our tale in earnest. The head of the house opposite was Thomas Winthorpe, who acted as book-keeper to a large outfitting house in the city. He was a rather taciturn, grave young man, and bore these characteristics upon his face, but he was fond of knowledge, and had acquired no small portion for a man in his position. Well-principled, and untiringly energetic, and industrious, he had risen from a low station more from the passive habit of steady good conduct, than the active exercise of any brilliant qualities, and he felt a pride in the fact; never hesitating, though he did not parade it, to utter the truth that he was first hired to sweep the offices, light the fires, and do other menial jobs. There was a striking similarity between him and his little wife, Kate Winthorpe (who had just changed her name from Stevens), which you saw in their faces, for Kate was grave, and habitually rather silent too. But her gravity had a shade more of pensiveness in it than Thomas's, which might have told the keen observer that it had not the same origin. Such indeed was the fact, for what difficulty and early poverty had done for Thomas, youthful plenty and after troubles had done for Kate though the bright smiles which I could now and then see chasing the shadows over Kate's comely but not pretty face, as she bade her husband good-by in the morning or welcomed him home at night, told that happiness was bringing back much of her original character. The old lady, Mrs. Stevens, Kate's mother, was a good sort of old lady, so far as I could learn, with a respectful tenderness for Thomas, and a fond affection for Kate, who had been the prop of her age and the solace of her troubles; but without any thing remarkable in her character beyond a meek resignation, which well supplied the place of a higher philosophy, and led her cheerfully to accept the present and be content with the past.