As I was walking towards the house of Dr. Mason, to bespeak him for the ceremony, and to fix the time and place, being on the opposite side of the street, I observed my rival standing at his door. As I knew he was informed that Rebecca and I were soon to be married, and report said he took on like a demented man, I slackened my pace, and seeing him admitted, concluded to defer my visit until the next day, persuaded that his business was somehow connected with our affair; and so it appeared it was, for when I did call next day, the reverend Doctor told me that the young man had cried like a child, and urged him to use his influence to break off the match. Now in this, was there not a manifest interposition? for if it had not been ordered for me to see him at Dr. Mason's door, and had I been two minutes later, we should have met in the house, what a catastrophe might have happened! In his frenzy he vowed to shoot me; and certain it is, when he heard we were married, he became quite delirious, and attempted to destroy himself; raving, had she only married a gentleman he would have thought nothing of it, but to refuse him and

take up with a poor, than human nature could bear. His passion, however, soon cooled, and he comforted himself by marrying another poor girl after a few days' courtship.

black nail-maker was more

Being married, the courteous reader, no doubt, thinks it was necessary for me to provide a household; for if he has a right understanding of domestic happiness, he cannot but know that a prudent pair will never abide in the parent's house of either the one or of the other. We accordingly went to housekeeping in a small wooden building, No. 22, Nassau-street, having only a ground-floor, which I partitioned off into a store, kitchen, and bed-room, which also served for our parlour. It was twelve feet by six in extent, and I will rehearse the catalogue of our plenishing, for the benefit of other young folk.

We had a bed and bedstead, good and most comfortable of their kind-a fine table worth no less than half a dollar-three Windsor chairs, one for each of us, and a spare one for a friend -a soup-pot, a tea-kettle, likewise a tea-pot, six cups and saucers, three soup-plates, which

on days of fish and steaks served as well as plain ones could have done-three pewter teaspoons, and two soup ditto of the same material; three knives and forks, a girdle for cakes, a frying-pan, and a gridiron—it was enough— it was all we wanted, we were all the world to one another. Then was, indeed, the midsummer of my life; for now that I have carpets to be shaken, brasses to scour, stairs to scrub, mahogany to polish, china to break, servants to scold, and a cat that plays the devil, I often say to myself, in the words of Solomon, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!"

CHAPTER X.

'Twas death-in haste.

HITHERTO I may say that my lines had fallen in pleasant places-especially when, in the course of a few months after my marriage, my brother returned from Philadelphia, and became a clerk to one of the most respectable merchants in the city. This was a pleasant reunion, and all things went prosperous-my thrift was thriving, and the time when Rebecca expected to be a mother was drawing nigh. But a sentence against the city had gone forth, and the angel of the pestilence was on the threshold of Heaven, shaking his black wings for a flight to the earth. About the middle of July he alighted in New York, and

with a phial in each hand, filled with the wrath of the yellow fever, he began to pour out the desolation.

On the 12th of August, a wail and lamentation spread throughout the town-Rachel weeping for her children; then there was a hurrying to and fro the inhabitants flying from destruction, followed by carts loaded with furniture, feather-beds, and tables, a universal flitting. The city was forsaken, and Silence, with weeping eyes, sat in the market-place.

We having no friends in the country to fly to, and not having money to support us there in idleness, concluded that it was ordained for a purpose, that we should remain in the midst of the calamity-and in this frame of mind, I invited my brother and my wife's mother to join us in an offering to the Lord. We assembled in the evening; it was the sabbath, and on that day there had been no worship, for the stern angel with his phials stood at the church-door, and the worshippers dreaded to

enter.

The air was fearfully warm, and our windows were open. The setting sun shone in