hinder his being as generous as if he had thousands to dispose of.  His heart does not take counsel with his purse, nor with anything but his heart.  He lives with a widowed sister who keeps his house; and she is as kind in her way as he is in his, though the ways are different.  I am as much at home here as I can be.  I have Rufus’s old room; it is a very pleasant one, and if there is not much furniture, neither do I want much.  It holds my bed and my books; and my wardrobe at present does not require very extensive accommodations; and when I am in the middle of one of those said parchment-covered tomes, it signifies very little indeed what is outside of them or of me, at the moment.  So you may think of me as having all I desire, so far as I myself am concerned; for my license and my use of it, must be worked and waited for.  I shall not be a great lawyer, dear Winnie, under three years at least.

“For you all, I desire so much that my heart almost shuts up its store and says nothing.  So much that for a long time, it may be, I can have no means of helping you to enjoy.  Dear father and mother, I hope I have not on the whole lessened your means of enjoyment by striking out this path for myself.  I trust it will in the end be found to be the best for us all.  I have acted under the pressure of an impulse that seemed strong as life.  I could do no other than as I have done.  Yet I can hardly bear to think of you at home sometimes.  Dear Winnie and Asahel, our images rise up and lie down with me.  Asahel must study hard every minute of time he can get.  And Winnie, you must study too every minute that it does not tire you, and when mother does not want you.  And write to me.  That will do you good, and it will do me good too.

“Give my love to Karen.

“Yours all, faithfully,

“Winthrop Landholm.

“P.  S. —­ I have seen nobody yet but Mr. Herder.”

When Winthrop went to put this letter in the post, he drew out the following: 

“To Winthrop Landholm, Esq.: 

At Mr. George Inchbald’s,

“Cor.  Beaver and Little South Sts., Mannahatta.

“I am so tired, Governor, with the world and myself to-night, that I purpose resting myself at your expense, —­ in other words, to pour over all my roiled feelings from my own heart into yours, hoping benevolently to find my own thereby cleared.  What will be the case with yours, I don’t like to stop to think; but incline to the opinion, which I have for many years held, that nothing can roil it.  You are infinitely better than I, Governor; you deserve to be very much happier; and I hope you are.  The truth is, for I may as well come to it, —­ I am half sick of my work.  I can see your face from here, and know just what its want of expression expresses.  But stop.  You are not in my place, and don’t know anything about it.  You are qualifying yourself for one of the first literary professions —­ and it is one of the greatest matters of joy to me to think that you are.  You are bidding fair to stand, where no doubt you will stand, at the head of society.  Nothing is beyond your powers; and your powers will stop short of nothing within their reach.  I know you, and hug myself (not having you at hand) every day to think what sort of a brother I have got.