recollect them as having been unworthy of his dignity. He resumed his
arrogant and careless air, half whistled "ca ira," and glanced at the
garden, with, "A tall poplar that. How old?"

"Not very old, for _I_ planted it."

"Very likely. Just such another giddy head and slender body as the
planter's. But, now I think of it, Jane, since your money is idle, suppose
you lend me five hundred dollars of it till to-morrow. Upon my honour,
I'll repay it then. My calls just now are particularly urgent. See here; I
have brought a _check_ ready filled. It only wants your
signature."

I felt instant and invincible repugnance to this request. I had so long
regarded my brother as void of all discretion, and as habitually
misapplying money to vicious purposes, that I deemed it a crime of no
inconsiderable degree to supply the means of his prodigality. Occasions
were daily occurring in which much good was effected by a few dollars, as
well as much evil produced by the want of them. My imagination pondered on
the evils of poverty much oftener than perhaps was useful, and had thence
contracted a terror--of it not easily controlled. My legacy I had always
regarded as a sacred deposit,--an asylum in distress which nothing but the
most egregious folly would rob or dissipate. Yet now I was called upon to
transfer, by one stroke of the pen, to one who appeared to me to be
engaged in ruinous vices or chimerical projects, so large a portion as
five hundred dollars.

I was no niggardly hoarder of the allowance made me by my mother; but
so diffident was I of my own discernment, that I never laid out twenty
dollars without her knowledge and concurrence. Could I then give away