bookkeeper of the Nautilus Bank at Rivermouth, found himself in a
position to execute a plan which he had long meditated in secret.

A statement like this at the present time, when integrity in a place of
trust has become almost an anomaly, immediately suggests a defalcation;
but Mr. Lynde's plan involved nothing more criminal than a horseback
excursion through the northern part of the State of New Hampshire. A
leave of absence of three weeks, which had been accorded him in
recognition of several years' conscientious service, offered young Lynde
the opportunity he had desired. These three weeks, as already hinted,
fell in the month of June, when Nature in New Hampshire is in her most
ravishing toilet; she has put away her winter ermine, which sometimes
serves her quite into spring; she has thrown a green mantle over her
brown shoulders, and is not above the coquetry of wearing a great
variety of wild flowers on her bosom. With her sassafras and her sweet-
brier she is in her best mood, as a woman in a fresh and becoming
costume is apt to be, and almost any one might mistake her laugh for the
music of falling water, and the agreeable rustle of her garments for the
wind blowing through the pine forests.

As Edward Lynde rode out of Rivermouth one morning, an hour or two
before anybody worth mention was moving, he was very well contented with
this world, though he had his grievances, too, if he had chosen to think
of them.

Masses of dark cloud still crowded the zenith, but along the eastern
horizon, against the increasing blue, lay a city of golden spires and
mosques and minarets--an Oriental city, indeed, such as is inhabited by
poets and dreamers and other speculative persons fond of investing their
small capital in such unreal estate. Young Lynde, in spite of his