consideration of causes to that of results. It is a different and a difficult work to forecast the future. It is a perilous experiment to enact the prophet or seer, but in another paper we shall venture at least upon some suggestions which may have their uses in modulating that national destiny which none of us have the power actually to create or even to foretell. WAS HE SUCCESSFUL? 'Do but grasp into the thick of human life! Every one _lives_ it--to not many is it _known_; and seize it where you will, it is interesting.'--GOETHE. 'SUCCESSFUL.--Terminating in accomplishing what is wished or intended.'--WEBSTER'S _Dictionary_. CHAPTER XI. Miss Arabella Thorne was the daughter of an old citizen of New York, a worthy man, a plumber by trade, who, by means of plenty of work, small competition, and high prices, managed to scrape together fifty or sixty thousand dollars, which from time to time he judiciously invested in real estate. Late in life he married a tall, lean, sour-visaged spinster, considerably past thirty, with nothing whatever to recommend her except that she belonged to one of the first families. The fact is, she was a poor relation, and had all her life been passed around from cousin to cousin, each endeavoring to shift the burden as quick as possible. As she grew older she became more fretful and ill tempered, until it was a serious question with all interested how to dispose of her. Of late years she had taken to novel reading, and when engaged with a favorite romance, she was so peevish and irritable, that, to use a common expression, there was no living with her. Things were at this pass when Thorn (he spelled his name without an _e_) was called to do some work at the house of Mr. de Silver, an uncle of the 'poor relation,' with whom she was then staying. This gentleman, who for years had been at his wits' end to know what to do with his niece, conceived the design of marrying her to Thorn, who was in good circumstances, and could give her a comfortable home. It so happened that she was at that time absorbed with a novel (she always fancied herself the heroine) where the principal character was called on to make a sacrifice, and by so doing married a nobleman in disguise. She therefore was ready; but it was not without some difficulty that Thorn was brought into the arrangement. However, the distinction of marrying so much above him, and the advantage which might avail to his children, overcame his natural good sense, and the 'poor relation' became Mrs. Thorn. It is very certain that Mrs. Thorn would have been the death of her husband in a reasonably short period, had she not herself been suddenly cut off the second year of her married life, leaving an infant a few hours old, whom she named Arabella, after her last heroine, just as the breath was leaving her body.