With these words the Judge retired, leaving John Jenkins buried in profound thought. “Three cents a day,” he muttered. “In forty years I might be worth four hundred and thirty-eight dollars and ten cents,—and then I might marry Mary. Ah, Mary!” The young carpenter sighed, and drawing a twenty-five cent daguerreotype from his vest-pocket, gazed long and fervidly upon the features of a young girl in book muslin and a coral necklace. Then, with a resolute expression, he carefully locked the door of his work-shop, and departed. Alas! his good resolutions were too late. We trifle with the tide of fortune, which too often nips us in the bud and casts the dark shadow of misfortune over the bright lexicon of youth! That night the half-consumed fragment of John Jenkins’s cigar set fire to his work-shop and burned it up, together with all his tools and materials. There was no insurance. CHAPTER II THE DOWNWARD PATH “Then you still persist in marrying John Jenkins?” queried Judge Boompointer, as he playfully, with paternal familiarity, lifted the golden curls of the village belle, Mary Jones. “I do,” replied the fair young girl, in a low voice that resembled rock candy in its saccharine firmness,—“I do. He has promised to reform. Since he lost all his property by fire”— “The result of his pernicious habit, though he illogically persists in charging it to me,” interrupted the Judge. “Since then,” continued the young girl, “he has endeavored to break himself of the habit. He tells me that he has substituted the stalks of the Indian rattan, the outer part of a leguminous plant called the smoking-bean, and the fragmentary and unconsumed remainder of cigars, which occur at rare and uncertain intervals along the road, which, as he informs me, though deficient in quality and strength, are comparatively inexpensive.” And blushing at her own eloquence, the young girl hid her curls on the Judge’s arm. “Poor thing!” muttered Judge Boompointer. “Dare I tell her all? Yet I must.” “I shall cling to him,” continued the young girl, rising with her theme, “as the young vine clings to some hoary ruin. Nay, nay, chide me not, Judge Boompointer. I will marry John Jenkins!” The Judge was evidently affected. Seating himself at the table, he wrote a few lines hurriedly upon a piece of paper, which he folded and placed in the fingers of the destined bride of John Jenkins. “Mary Jones,” said the Judge, with impressive earnestness, “take this trifle as a wedding gift from one who respects your fidelity and truthfulness. At the altar let it be a reminder of me.” And covering his face hastily with a handkerchief, the stern and iron-willed man left the room. As the door closed, Mary unfolded the paper. It was an order on the corner grocery for three yards of flannel, a paper of needles, four pounds of soap, one pound of starch, and two boxes of matches!