If happiness consists in having many friends, I ought to have been a happy man. Old carvers, neighbors, pensioners of the company, every one down to the housekeeper, and Tom Lawton, my only clerk, spoke kindly of me. Theirs was no lip-service. I knew they liked me in their hearts. The world, too, had gone smoothly with me. I knew nothing of the struggles for bread, the hardships and wrongs which other men endure. They appeared to me even fabulous when I read them. The means of getting my living were put into my hands. The company seemed almost grateful to my father for bringing me up to the office. My income was two hundred pounds per annum, as well as the house to live in, and coals and candles, which was more than I needed for my support, though I always found means of disposing of the surplus, and never saved any thing. I was not, however, a happy man. I had always the feeling of a spirit subdued to a life to which it was not suited. I do not say that in another sphere I should have led a boisterous life. My mind was, perhaps, more prone to reflection than to action, although I felt that if I had been more in the world, if I had known more of life and change, I should have been a happier man. But from my earliest days the vanity of life, and the virtue of keeping aloof from temptation, were instilled into me. "A rolling stone gathers no moss," was the first proverb which I heard from my father's mouth. These principles, implanted early, took deep root, though, perhaps, in an unfavorable soil. Living also under the same roof with my father, I felt alarmed at every whispering of my own inclinations which was opposed to his wishes, and strove to subdue them, as if I were struggling with the evil portion of my nature. Thus, in course of time, I became what I am; not a misanthrope, thank God, but a timid and somewhat melancholy man. We had no mirth-making in our household, except at Christmas-time, when we feasted, in good earnest. My father loved at that time to display a rough hospitality. We had generally two or three nights of merry-making, at which were both young and old people--all carvers, or the children of carvers--and after his death I continued the custom. Often, as I sat with my happy friends about me, some sweet young woman would give me a sly hit upon my obdurate determination to die an old bachelor; little thinking that her heedless words could give me pain, though they cut me deeply, and set me looking at the fire with a thoughtful face. I might have married, perhaps, if I had found a partner; my income was not large, but many men run the risk of a family with less means to support one than I had; but, somehow, I found myself at forty-five years of age unmarried, slim, and prim--the very type of an old bachelor. It was not from indifference, for I was by nature sensitive and affectionate. For women I had a kind of reverence. I pictured them to myself all that is noble and good: yet,