stockholders.

Longer acquaintance has, however, revealed the fact, that these
Oldport institutions stand out as models of strict discipline
beside their suburban compeers. A friend of mine declares that he
went lately into a country bank, nearby, and found no one on
duty. Being of opinion that there should always be someone behind
the counter of a bank, he went there himself. Wishing to be
informed as to the resources of his establishment, he explored
desks and vaults, found a good deal of paper of different kinds,
and some rich veins of copper, but no cashier. Going to the door
again in some anxiety, he encountered a casual school-boy, who
kindly told him that he did not know where the financial officer
might be at the precise moment of inquiry, but that half an hour
before he was on the wharf, fishing.

Death comes to the aged at last, however, even in Oldport. We
have lately lost, for instance, that patient old postman,
serenest among our human antiquities, whose deliberate tread
might have imparted a tone of repose to Broadway, could any
imagination have transferred him thither. Through him the
correspondence of other days came softened of all immediate
solicitude. Ere it reached you, friends had died or recovered,
debtors had repented, creditors grown kind, or your children had
paid your debts. Perils had passed, hopes were chastened, and the
most eager expectant took calmly the missive from that
tranquillizing hand. Meeting his friends and clients with a step
so slow that it did not even stop rapidly, he, like Tennyson's
Mariana, slowly
"From his bosom drew