Notwithstanding considerable languor hung about his bodily frame, and his bones and muscles still ached from the effects of the boating, he felt a more peaceful frame of mind than he had known for weeks before.  The knowledge of having done wrong is always the first step toward amendment.  He not only felt that he had been guilty of more sins than lying, but, viewing those minor faults in a different light than formerly, he determined to watch over his heart carefully, and avoid giving any cause of complaint in future.  “Watch that you may pray, and pray that you may be safe,” were words that floated in his mind all the morning as he sat hammering shoe soles; and he would not laugh at any joke of Jem Taylor’s against his master, although for some time past he had enjoyed hearing him ridiculed.

Late in the afternoon Mrs. Walters came in, and, giving him a pair of leather boots, told him to take them to Mrs. Bradley, the wife of a market gardener who lived outside the city.  It was fully three hours after his scanty dinner had been eaten, and supper would be over ere he returned.  Growing boys are always hungry, and he was about to venture to ask Mrs. Walters for a lunch to serve in place of the evening meal, when he remembered the rolls given him by Mrs. Burton, and which were still in his trunk.  He hid the little packet in his bosom, intending to eat its contents on his way home; and after having put his letter in the post-office, he set off to accomplish his errand.

One might have thought the walk, and the variety always met with in the streets of a large city, would have exhilarated him; but, whether owing to the condition of his bodily health, this was not now the case.  He passed the picture-shops without noticing the treasures in the windows; the silver-ware and fanciful ornaments of the jewellers’ establishments served only to remind him of the vanities of earth, and his own poverty; and as he looked upon the gaily-dressed crowd that was thronging Broadway, among which there was not one whose face was known to him, that painful sense of desolation which comes over one when he feels alone in a crowd, saddened him almost to tears.  He recalled the happy days of his early childhood, and even those when, after his father’s death, he had been compelled to labour to assist his mother.  Ah, how light it all seemed in comparison with the hardship of his present lot!  Notwithstanding the comfort he had enjoyed on the previous day, and his renewed determination to do his duty and trust in God, his heart grew sick at the prospect of the long years of wretchedness and bondage yet to be endured before his apprenticeship should end; and he wished to die.  “I am the most unhappy being on the face of the earth,” he said, as he wiped away the tears with his ragged sleeve; “but still I will try to do right.  Ah, if Nicholas Herman knew how unhappy I am, I am sure he would try to get me away!” He had by this time reached the city limits, and the gardener’s cottage,