family and friends here in New Bedford. It is a most interesting
volume."

I did not find it so. For even as he spoke the young girl, still
with a troubled countenance, glided away. Inwardly I cursed Captain
Briggs and associated with him in my curse the polite Mr.
Hatchardson. But, at his next words my interest returned. Still
smiling, he lowered his voice.

"Miss Briggs, the young lady who just left us," he said, is the
granddaughter of Captain Briggs, and she does not want the book to
go out of the family; she wants it for herself." I interrupted
eagerly.

"But it is for sale?" Mr. Hatchardson reluctantly assented.

"Then I will take it," I said.

Fifty dollars is a great deal of money, but the face of the young
lady had been very sad. Besides being sad, had it been aged, plain,
and ill-tempered, that I still would have bought the book, is a
question I have never determined.

To Mr. Hatchardson, of my purpose to give the book to Miss Briggs,
I said nothing. Instead I planned to send it to her anonymously by
mail. She would receive it the next morning when I was arriving in
New York, and, as she did not know my name, she could not possibly
return it. At the post-office I addressed the "Log" to "Miss
Briggs, care of Hatchardson's Bookstore," and then I returned to
the store. I felt I had earned that pleasure. This time, Miss