HIS LEVEL BEST.

[STRICTLY speaking these notes are only part of a story. They are fragments, taken not quite at hazard, from the diary of an unfortunate gentleman, now resident in the poor-house, a cultivated man of amiable disposition, and formerly of comfortable or sufficient property. How he lost that property his own memoranda will show us.

If any one should ask me what this memoir teaches, I should have to say, as I should say of most life, that it teaches a great many things. I suppose it teaches the folly of a constant remark, that if people mean well all will go well; but I should not print it here to teach that simple lesson. If it teaches, also, the absurdity of the pressure which some of the organizations of society make upon the best of its individual members, I shall be glad of that. Most of all, I hope that it may teach some young man or some young woman that it is better to do the whole of one duty than a part of many; that it is better to compel society and to make circumstance obey you, than it is to yield to fashion or to dictation the use of your talent, of your money, or of your time.]

My story begins where most stories end, with a wedding.

It begins with my wedding. My wife was married at the same time.

Our friends all said that the circumstances were most auspicious. Certainly I thought so. I loved her. She loved me. Better than either, we had not been attached in youth, and so were not beginning to get tired of each other. We were not like each other. That, as my Aunt Joanna said, was so much the better. She said that, when she bought a box of hooks and eyes, she was always disappointed if they proved to be all eyes or all hooks. She said that a hook and an eye held together much more firmly than two hooks did, or two eyes.

I had a little property, perhaps sixty-two thousand dollars, and a trifle of three hundred and ninety-seven or thereabout more. My wife had an independent property in her own right of sixty-one thousand nine hundred and one dollars. It seemed as if I were a little the superior in this, but on her wedding-night one of her uncles gave her a five-hundred-dollar bill, which made her rather the richer of the two.

No one gave me anything on our wedding-night, with a single exception which I shall mention. She had a great many presents. Her father gave her to me, and she was not a thing. I counted that much the best present of the occasion.

My wife and I had no causes for dissent, and we have never quarrelled from that hour to this. We have faithfully followed each other's fortunes. True, we have been parted, but not by ourselves. I am now in the Male Department of the poor-house, Dormitory

B, native whites. also Dormitory B, native whites also. The children are in what is known as the Nursery Department, also Dormitory B, native whites also.

She is in the Female Department,

We have been married seven years, and have known no material difference of opinions. Tiffs we have had, but not quarrels. I own to tiffs, but I do not own to quarrels. There was no reason why we should quarrel. We both had good appetites and good health. We were both fond of books, and yet we did not always want to read the same book at a time. We had the same views on papal infallibility, on the doctrine of election, on regeneration, on the fall of man, on the vicarious atonement, on baptism, and on the future life.

In a paper to be read before a mixed audience, I do not think it proper or desirable to state what those views were; but mine were hers and hers were mine.

We went to the same church, we taught in the same Sunday school, and believed in the same-minister.

Under these circumstances we were married. There was a large attendance, and the minister married us first-rate. I have no fault to find with the minister. Then they all congratulated us. I sometimes wonder if they would congratulate us now, if they came down to see the poor-house some day with the Board of Overseers of the Poor, and I should be detailed to see to their horses, and my wife to wait at table when they had the collation. But they congratulated us then.

Then her uncle gave her the five-hundred-dollar bill,

in a little aside, and he told her that she had everything heart could wish, a pretty home and a good husband. He meant me. Then he said she must not be unmindful of others, but must be willing to do whatever other people wanted her to do for the good of those around her, indeed, for the good of the world. And she cried a little, and she said she would.

Then, in a little joking, her father came to me and said he thought I ought to be sufficiently obliged to him for giving Gertrude to me. But he was going to

took out a little bit

add to the obligation. Then he of paper. I thought it was a check. He made a little speech, in which he said that he had got much comfort, and I think an occasional nap, from reading regularly the "Evening Post," which was the leading evening paper of our town. He had been to the office that day and subscribed for it for five years in my name. And this bit of paper was the receipted bill of the publisher for five years.

It was not a check.

It

I observed, while he was doing this, that my father was handing Gertrude a little bit of paper. All the people thought that was a check. But it was not. was not the same as mine, however. My father always read in the morning the " Daily Times," which was the leading morning paper of our town. He had subscribed for that for six years in her name, and he was giving the publisher's receipt to her.

By and by the wedding was done. The minister