sold, from a dress-pattern to a pound of sugar. Outside of the village
there are farmhouses, surrounded by broad acres, which keep them at
respectable distances from each other, like the feudal castles of the
Middle Ages. The land is good, and the farmers are thrifty and well-to-
do; but probably the whole town contains less than a thousand
inhabitants.

In one of the houses, near the church, lived Dr. Kent, whose letter has
already been referred to. He was a skillful physician, and a very worthy
man, who would have been very glad to be benevolent if his limited
practice had supplied him with the requisite means. But chance had
directed him to a healthy and sparsely-settled neighborhood, where he
was able only to earn a respectable livelihood, and indeed found himself
compelled to economize at times where he would have liked to indulge
himself in expense.

When Mrs. Mason died it was found that the sale of her furniture barely
realized enough to defray the expenses of her funeral. Herbert, her only
son, was left wholly unprovided for. Dr. Kent, knowing that he had a
rich uncle in New York, undertook to communicate to him the position in
which his nephew had been left, never doubting that he would cheerfully
extend a helping hand to him. Meanwhile he invited Herbert to come to
his house and make it his home till his uncle should send for him.

Herbert was a handsome, well-grown boy of fourteen, and a general
favorite in the village. While his mother lived he had done all he could
to lighten her tasks, and he grieved deeply for her loss now that she
was gone. His father had ten years before failed in business in the city
of New York, and, in a fit of depression, had emigrated to this obscure
country village, where he had invested the few hundred dollars remaining