sudden pipings. This agreeable bustle was the affair of a moment, but it

startled me from the abstraction into which I had fallen like a summons.

I sat briskly up, and as I did so, my eyes rested on the figure of a

lady in a brown jacket and carrying a paint-box. By her side walked a

fellow some years older than myself, with an easel under his arm; and

alike by their course and cargo I might judge they were bound for the

gallery, where the lady was, doubtless, engaged upon some copying.

You can imagine my surprise when I recognized in her the heroine of my

adventure. To put the matter beyond question, our eyes met, and she,

seeing herself remembered and recalling the trim in which I had

last beheld her, looked swiftly on the ground with just a shadow of

confusion.

I could not tell you to-day if she were plain or pretty; but she had

behaved with so much good sense, and I had cut so poor a figure in

her presence, that I became instantly fired with the desire to display

myself in a more favorable light. The young man besides was possibly her

brother; brothers are apt to be hasty, theirs being a part in which

it is possible, at a comparatively early age, to assume the dignity

of manhood; and it occurred to me it might be wise to forestall all

possible complications by an apology.

On this reasoning I drew near to the gallery door, and had hardly got in

position before the young man came out. Thus it was that I came face to

face with my third destiny; for my career has been entirely shaped

by these three elements,--my father, the capitol of Muskegon, and my

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