thrown upon old Mr. Fenwick, for support.

For four years did they remain a burden upon the father, during
which time, unstimulated to exertion by pressing necessities,
Charles made but little progress as a lawyer. Petty cases he
despised, and generally refused to undertake, and those of more
importance were not trusted to one who had yet to prove himself
worthy of a high degree of legal confidence. At the end of that time
both his father and mother were suddenly removed to the world of
spirits, and he was again thrown entirely upon his own resources.

With no one now to check them in any thing Charles and his wife,
after calculating the results of the next year's legal efforts, felt
fully justfied in renting a handsome house, and furnishing it on
credit. The proceeds of the year's practice rose but little above
four hundred dollars, and at its conclusion they found themselves
involved in a new debt of three thousand dollars. Then came another
breaking up, with all of its harrowing consequences--consequences
which to persons of their habits and mode of thinking, are so deeply
mortifying,--followed by their shrinking away, with a meagre remnant
of their furniture, into a couple of rooms, in an obscure part of
the town.

"Adelaide," said the husband, one morning, as he roused himself from
a painful reverie.

"Well, what do you want?" she asked abstractedly, lifting her eyes
with reluctant air from the pages of a novel.

"I want to talk to you for a little while; so shut your book, if you