Milbank; and I may add that his mental and moral portrait was equally engaging, except, perhaps, in a trait or two, which simply rendered him disagreeable to persons of a different turn. He was too fond of controversy to suit many people; and he seemed to have too little mercy on those he happened to confute. He was far too inquisitive as many fancied. He was so absent-minded frequently. that his conversation came in rapid showers, alternating with long and dreary pauses that were tedious to endure. But he had one trait that I admired. He was very respectful to women, when his mind was at home, and he seemed to practice the sentiment of Richter, regarding all women sacred for his mother's sake.

His career, like that of hundreds of our self-made men, would have given another bright page to our history. He remained at this time in the same law-office where he entered in quality of a poor, bashful porter, several years ago. But he no longer performed the same menial duties. He remained a porter not above a year; but during that time he was the porter in great earnest, and would not have been induced to act as anything else. He was early and late at the office; he performed with alacrity every command he received, and stood on tip-toe, his master said, while it was given. The office was kept in the finest order all that year. His errands were done with unfailing correctness and despatch. He even took duties on himself that were not required of him, such as blacking his master's boots, milking his master's cow, and doing service at the house.

At the same time his eyes and ears were always open to catch ideas, and study character wherever he was, and he never sat down without a book or pen in hand. By faithfulness his services became indispensable, and his intelligence and progress created such an interest in his master, that at the end of the first year, the gentleman admitted him to a clerkship in his office, gave him a salary of two hundred dollars, and took him into his own family to board.

During that year, I believe George found a great deal of leisure time to study and attend lectures and the debating club. Mr. Aiken gave him lessons to study, problems in mathematics to solve, and books to read, while he called in one or two of George's companions, gave them questions for debate, and disputed with them, as often as once a week. He discovered a talent in his clerk which he little suspected when he first entered the office, glad enough to get sweeping and errands to do. He found in the young man quick and keen perceptions, active reason, a free and accurate utterance, with a judgment which few of the better educated and more experienced possessed. In short, Mr. Aiken discovered that George Milbank had every natural qualification for a successful lawyer, and he sent him to Mr. Murdock in Boston for a thorough course in elocution, advanced him means to enjoy a term or two at school, and took him as a student, resolved to see what he could make of him.

George had the faculty of getting the ideas of a lesson and the substance of a book before others could have read

them; and it was scarce two years after he commenced law studies for the profession, before he was admitted to the bar, with the most cordial greetings, and gained two or three suits in the courts, which made him quite a reputation.

XXXIV.

I WOULD like to give as cheerful a chapter to every other friend as I have given to George Milbank; but I must continue to weave many sable threads with the brightest texture of my work. Amelia Dorlon re-appears in a character from which I would have given the world to save her. The temptations of false life in Merrimack were too powerful for her, and she yielded more and more to their delusive influence. The passion for dress, in which she had always been indulged; her love of flattery and favor, and her fondness for gay and extravagant life, increased with her years.

She was not without intelligence or a taste for worthy books and lectures at this time; but a passion for vainer pleasures predominated, and it was with grief and anxiety that her friends for the last few years had watched her steps. She was still kind-hearted as a child. She was handsome in appearance. She still maintained her chastity, although her conduct excited scandal and reproach. But she gave little heed to that injunction of the scripture which warns us to "abstain from all appearance of evil." And beside, she contracted little vices which nothing but true history would prompt me to record. She took no

step to secure that noble independence (so characteristic of New England) which so many of the factory girls maintained. She made no particular effort to rise by selfculture to a superior sphere. She made no deposits in the bank, and saved nothing to assist her mother. On the contrary, she spent all her wages as fast as they were due, on the vain endeavor of keeping up with the style of those who had their thousands to disburse. She accepted the addresses of many gay young men who were pleased with her beauty, and yet had no thought of "stooping" to anything more serious than coquetry with her. She preferred a dance to a lecture at any time; and while we would have liked to see her at parties and balls on proper occasions, and during virtuous hours, she desired to go every week, and remain all night. She neglected more and more the circle of her old friends, and seemed better pleased with the smiles of some gay stranger than even her mother's love.

After receiving and dismissing a score of beaux, a person made her acquaintance, who declared his admiration, took her to amusements, and made her believe he was seriously in love. But he was a young man of wealth and fashion, and it required more than Amelia could earn at her looms, with all that her mother could assist her, to support her in a style becoming her new rank. She resorted to other means. She began to borrow a dollar here and there among the girls. Her lover continued his addresses, praised the rich taste of her toilet, and confirmed her in the belief, that within a month or two, he would lead her to the altar.