Here is one hand and one heart that shall never betray. Come to me, ye scandal-torn and society-ridden. Come to me, ye whom venomous tongues have harried, and ye whose characters hang in shreds about you, come also. Ye have faults, and so have I. Somewhere ye have good traits, and these are what I respect. Let us defy the "they-says," and as for those whose shibboleth is, "I have it upon good authority," we will give them the go-by. We will laugh to see the tribulation of them that sit in council, and hold foul revelry over their neighbors' shortcomings; they shall read of our resolutions, and there shall be no comfort in the cup of tea any more which Tabbies sip delectably, while they tear Miss Bright-eyes to pieces. There shall lurk a maggot in the shreds of dried beef which these modern ghouls rend, as they rend my fair name; and may the biscuits be as heavy upon their stomachs as tale-bearing shall one day be upon their consciences. _Thou shalt not bear false witness._ If I am unlike you, gentle reader, guiltless of this crying sin, I know you will not condemn me, will not decry me, make little of me, or seek to poison men's minds against me. You will have that charity for me which is not puffed up; and where I err, or you are ignorant of my motive, hold your peace. To-day there are dear ones in exile, or in the bonds of sin, for this very practice. There are lives hopelessly lost to virtue, and others imbittered forever. Families are separated, and high hopes and aspirations crushed, while the fountains of affection which should be filled to the brim afford only a trickling stream, or, worse still, foul lees which never will subside. There are shadows in many homes, and empty chairs that never will be filled. The child on the floor misses its playfellow, the wife her husband, the mother her son, the betrothed her lover, and still the tale-bearers go upon their rounds, and their feet never, never rest. THE ROSE ROLLINS. PART I. There lived a few years ago in one of the small seaport towns of New England a solitary, friendless man, of the name of John Chidlaw,--a gray-headed, stoop-shouldered, hollow-chested person of about fifty years of age at the time our story begins. He was sober, steady, and industrious, and always had been so since his first appearance in the place, but somehow he never got ahead. He was thriftless, people used to say, and they got in the habit of calling him "Johnny," and then "Old Johnny," until nobody called him anything else, unless it were here and there some poor child or sympathetic woman, who said "Uncle Johnny," with that sort of gentle kindness that is never bestowed on the prosperous.