As a basis of comparison I have now the two short terms of service at West Point and here. I received employment at both places as almost any laborer might have done, and I found in them both the means of livelihood. But as a servant, I have found more than that. The man who had been engaged as porter appeared about a week after my arrival. He proved to be Martha's brother, and a newly landed immigrant. There was no mistaking the last fact. His peaked countenance, with surviving traces of ruddy color; his queer pot-hat, that rested on his ears; his bright woollen tippet, defying the heat; his baggy suit, which had doubtless served for day and night through all the voyage; his heavy boots--all proclaimed him the raw material of a new citizen. Nor could there be a doubt of his kinship with Martha. She stood with me awaiting the stage, directing eager glances down the carriage-drive and excitedly asking questions about its coming. She was the first to see it, and to recognize her brother on the seat with Sam, and she fluttered about in the unconcealed delight of affection, perfectly unconscious of everyone, until her arms were about her brother's neck, and she was leading him away to the kitchen. Nothing was said to me about leaving; Martha's brother became her assistant as a dishwasher, and learned to lend a generally useful hand in the kitchen. And so I had fairly won my place, and had open before me a way of promotion. Experience alone could disclose the value of the opening; but the "---- House" is a winter as well as a summer resort, and a porter's services are therefore in demand through the year. If efficient, intelligent labor could not eventually win higher and more responsible position in such an enterprise, and possibly gain, at last, an interest in the business, the case is surely exceptional. It is the change in external conditions and its bearing upon me as a human worker which have most impressed me, in contrast with my first experience. I worked for nine hours and a quarter at West Point, and had, at the end of the day's labor, if the weather had been good, eighty-five cents above actual living expenses. Here I have usually worked from five o'clock in the morning until eleven at night, at all manner of menial drudgery, and have gone to bed in the comfortable assurance that, in addition to food and shelter, I have earned twenty-six cents and a fraction. And yet, as a matter of choice, purely with reference to the conditions under which the work is done, I should infinitely prefer a week of my present duties to a single day at such labor as that at West Point.