indifferent to the education of the lower. Even these evils are being
gradually removed, and emancipation is establishing itself, not merely
as a grand act of justice, wisely done, but as a successful moral and
economical reform, whose fruits are to be seen in the good morals,
industry, and increasing wealth of many happy communities.

* * * * *




A STORY OF TO-DAY.

PART VI.


It was later than Holmes thought: a gray, cold evening. The streets in
that suburb were lonely: he went down them, the new-fallen snow dulling
his step. It had covered the peaked roofs of the houses too, and they
stood in listening rows, white and still. Here and there a pale flicker
from the gas-lamps struggled with the ashy twilight. He met no one:
people had gone home early on Christmas eve. He had no home to go to:
pah! there were plenty of hotels, he remembered, smiling grimly. It was
bitter cold: he buttoned up his coat tightly, as he walked slowly along
as if waiting for some one,--wondering dully if the gray air were any
colder or stiller than the heart hardly beating under the coat. Well,
men had conquered Fate, conquered life and love, before now. It grew
darker: he was pacing now slowly in the shadow of a long low wall
surrounding the grounds of some building. When he came near the gate, he
would stop and listen: he could have heard a sparrow on the snow, it was