from menial duties, and gave him neat attire, and it was wonderful how well these accessories became him. He was unassuming, as before, submitting with patience to his lot; and at length he became indispensable to Mrs. Everett. Her attachment to books of fiction amounted to dissipation, and the part that he bore in their perusal filled his warm imagination till his fancies were brighter than romance--they became poetry. The one great grief of his life touched his whole face with a pensive melancholy, but he forebore to tell them his true history again, preferring to wait for some golden moment when he might be believed and emancipated. From the beginning Mrs. Everett's agent disliked him. Wait was a Northern adventurer, cool, courageous, and ambitious, who had settled in the South with the resolution of becoming rich, and he had pursued his purpose with steady inflexibility. He was not a bad man, but a bitter one, and Paul had in some sort divided Mrs. Everett's esteem from him. Previously he had been her sole and undisputed adviser, and as she was readily influenced, he hoped, in course of time, to be acceptable as her second husband. He was young and manly, and she was giddy and middle-aged. Her relatives held him in contempt, but he had proved his courage, and they did not care to cross him. But with the coming of Paul he had lost somewhat of her regard, and he had laid it to the boy's charge. Paul read his calm purpose in his keen eyes, and he shuddered at the thought of some day falling into his relentless hands. He labored to conciliate his enemy, but with little effect, until one afternoon, Wait told him to obtain permission from Mrs. Everett and come to the office. He dictated some ambiguous letters to Paul, and gave him many papers to burn, meanwhile inspecting a pair of long pistols which he took from a portmanteau. It was late in the afternoon when he had done, and then he bade Paul take the case of pistols, slip quietly into the street, and walk straight on till he was overtaken. He obeyed, not without suspicion, and when he reached the city limits found the agent, to his great surprise, seated in a carriage. Two other persons attended him, and one, who was bald and wore glasses, had a case of surgical instruments lying at his feet. Paul climbed to the driver's box, and they dashed along by the water-side, meeting a second carriage on their way. The last rays of sunset were streaming over the low landscape when both carriages stopped, their occupants dismounted, and Wait came to the front and reached up his hand to Paul. "Good-by, boy," he said in a tone of unwonted tenderness; "remain here a moment and you will see me again!"