GEORGE PREBLE and Evelina were in the constant habit of sitting from supper to bed-time, in their Aunt Priscilla's room, and on his return from Selma (the evening of his visit there), he found Evelina with his aunt. She had supped, and had carried George's supper up stairs, to be kept warm by Miss Priscilla's good fire.

  "Lina," said George, "I am just from Selma, where I spent an hour or two in very agreeable conversation with Dr. and Mrs. Boswell; they are charming people, ain't they?"

  "Yes, they are, indeed, George; I don't know two better people in this word than they are."

  "Come, Lina, that's too extravagant; where's Aunt Pris and Mr. Grattan?"

  "You know, George, Aunt Priscilla is excepted by the general rule, which puts present company out of the operation of a remark of that kind."

  "And by what rule is Mr. Grattan excepted?"

  "I did not say that Mr. Grattan was excepted at all, George."

  "Now, Lina, I know you don't think the Doctor or Mrs. Boswell either, as good as Mr. Grattan."

  "They are each as good, or better than the other in their particular sphere, George. The Doctor is a better physician and farmer than Mr. Grattan, and Mr. Grattan is a better minister than the Doctor, and Mrs. Boswell in her sphere is as good as she can be."

  "Ah! Lina, that's just a quibble; you meant to say at first that you did not know any better moral people. Now, I know you think Mr. Grattan better than either of them."

  "Why, George, I do think Mr. Grattan has more piety than either the Doctor or Mrs. Boswell, but I love them so sincerely that I may be too extravagant in their praise."

  "I just understand you now, Lina, you praise the Doctor and Mrs. Boswell because you love them so dearly, and Mr. Grattan, because you think so and so of him. I will venture to say for Mr. Grattan, that he would rather you would think less highly of him, and love him a little more."

  "Aunt Priscilla," said Evelina, "I've dropped a stitch in my knitting; I wish you would take it up for me."

  "My dear," said Miss Priscilla, "you know I can't see to do that in the day, much less at night."

  "Lina," said George, "as I made you drop the stitch, hand me the knitting, and I will take it up."

  "You made me drop it, George—how did you make me drop it?"

  "Why, by talking of Mr. Grattan and love, Lina."

  "Aunt Priscilla, do make George eat his supper, and hush his nonsense, will you?"

  "My dear, it is more than I can do, to make George stop talking nonsense; his supper is very much in my way, and if he don't eat it shortly, I'll make Mary take it out."

  "I'll save Mary that trouble, aunt." He took up his supper, went to the table, and soon despatched it.

  "Lina, if you hadn't been so near making me lose my supper, I would tell you what I heard said about you this afternoon."

  "If it hadn't been for me, George, you would not have had that supper, for I brought it up for you."

  "Well, deary, as you brought my supper, and are now in a good humour with me, I will tell you, that I heard Doctor and Mrs. Boswell say some very kind things about you."

  "George," said Miss Priscilla,"you know that I don't like Evelina to be told of what people say in her praise. We are all frail creatures, and are too prone to think too highly of ourselves; and when, to the estimate we put on ourselves, is added the flattery of others, it is apt to produce a self-complacency, incompatible with that meekness and lowliness of spirit which ought to adorn every Christian."

  "Aunt, the kind things I spoke of, were only expressions of kind wishes for Evelina's future happiness. Would there be any harm in telling her that?"

  "It depends entirely, George, upon what was to contribute to her future happiness. For instance, if her friends wished her to be rich, and a very fine gay lady of the world, by being told of such wishes, young ladies generally might be induced to hope for those things for themselves, when they hear that in the opinion of friends those things constitute happiness. I do not, however, fear such consequences to Evelina; I flatter myself that her views of real happiness are such that she would not seek it in such trifles as those."

  "Suppose, aunt, I were to tell Evelina that her friends wished her future happiness to be derived from a union with a pious evangelical minister; what would you think of that, aunt?"

  "George, I can't say that I would object to such a communication as that; Evelina already knows that such wishes are perfectly in accordance with my own, and that it is the first wish of my heart that her future destiny should be interwoven with that of an evangelical minister of the Gospel."

  "Lina, dear, don't cry; aunty won't make you marry a minister, if you don't want to." Evelina was actually in tears, at thought, however, of her father's opposition.

  "George, if you don't hush," said Evelina, "I will tell Julia Scott not to marry such a harem scarem boy as you are."

  "Ah! deary, Julia Scott won't mind what you say. Julia knows that I am a very sedate body, and that Mr.

  "George," said Miss Priscilla, "I was really in hopes that you had given over that extraordinary notion of yours of going to California. If Major Scott consents to your taking Julia off to California, he must have pretty much the same opinion of you that you seem to have of yourself."

  "Well, aunty, why not? everybody seems to think well of Mr. George Preble."

  "I am sure I would not let Evelina go to California with Mr. George Preble, or Mr. George anybody else," said Miss Priscilla.

  "No, aunty; Mr. Grattan's name isn't George. Suppose, however, she was going with the Reverend Mr. John Grattan; would you object to it then?"

  "I would not like Evelina to go to California with anybody, George."

  "Now, aunty, if he was missionary to Greece, China, or Africa, what would become of your zeal in behalf of the heathen, if you were to object to Lina's going to assist him in his missionary labours? I know you would let her go then; and why not let her go with him to California, where they want missionaries as much as they do anywhere upon the face of the earth."

  "It will be time enough for me decide that question, George, when an occasion occurs for its decision; but you don't pretend to be going to California as a missionary."

  "In one sense I do, aunt; my mission is to collect gold dust."

  "That is a mission, George, for destroying, instead of saving souls; and it grieves me to think that my sister's son should be engaged in so unholy a mission as that."

  "It is not necessarily unholy, aunt. I can go there, and be very industrious, and very moral, and set all the people there an example of uprightness of conduct; and come back here with a few hundred thousand of the shiners; and what harm have I done to myself or anybody else?"

  "You acknowledge, George, that it is a vicious community, by saying that there is great need of missionary labours there. Now, if you go there, you will expose yourself to temptation, to sin, and iniquity in every shape and form; and it is much more probable that you will follow the multitude to do evil, than that the multitude will follow your example to do good. Moreover, if you escape the contaminations of the place, in those few hundred thousand of shiners, as you call them, which you might bring back, there is an onerous weight of the mammon of unrighteousness, sufficient to sink your soul to perdition."

  "Everybody, aunt, seems to be trying to collect some of these shiners; how many do you think it safe to possess, so as to keep one's soul out of perdition?"

  "It would be safe, George, to possess so much, and no more, than what you would make a good use of. As the quantity increases, so increases the danger of improper use. With the increase of the quantity there is also an increased desire to accumulate, increased affection for that which is accumulated, and increased estrangement of the affections from those things which belong to our everlasting peace."

  "Well, aunt, it seems to me that the more I had, the more good I would do with it."

  "You may think so, George, now that you are out of the possession of wealth, but the general experience teaches, that its possession contracts rather than expands the desire of doing good."

  Their conversation was interrupted by the striking of the clock, which announced the arrival of Miss Priscilla's hour for retiring.

  George Preble and Mr. Benson had both obtained the assent of Major and Mrs. Scott to their marriage before Mr. Benson returned to Boston; and George, the day after the conversation in his aunt's room, went over to the Major's, and sought a private opportunity of informing him before his marriage, of his intention to go to California for a few years. He was apprehensive if he delayed making the communication until after he was married, that he might be charged with having taken an undue advantage of his wife's parents. He determined to abandon the idea of going, if their opposition should be so very decided as to put at hazard his marriage with Julia.

  "Major Scott," said George, "I am come to inform you of my plans after my union with your daughter. I have, within a few days past, received an invitation from a connexion now residing in California, to come and join him there in a business he represents as being very profitable. He thinks that if I will connect myself with him, and remain in California about five years, that at the end of that time I may return to Virginia a wealthy man. I have mentioned it to Julia, and she says that although it will give her great pain to leave her parents, she would

  "George," said Major Scott, "although it will be as severe a shock to my wife and myself as could possibly come upon us, if, after carefully weighing this matter, you are brought to a positive conviction of its beneficial results to yourself and your family, we must acquiesce, and determine to bear the separation from our daughter with becoming fortitude. I will take this opportunity of informing you of my intended distribution of my property during my life. I have thirty negroes, which I have divided into three lots, in families, one of which is intended for you, one for Mr. Benson, and the other, with my farm, I shall retain for the use of my wife and myself as long as we both live. After our deaths, of course, Mr. Benson and yourself will divide the whole. If you determine, George, to go to California, what will you do with your lot of negroes? you know you can't carry them with you."

  "I have thought of that, sir, and if I go, I can't do otherwise than sell them; but I will not sell them out of the county, and shall inhibit the traders from buying, if I should not be able to sell them privately."

  "Under such circumstances, George, you must expect to sell them at a sacrifice; but I admire your kind feelings, and shall be reconciled to such a sale as you propose. Mr. Benson is similarly situated, and I presume would sell in the same way."

  "Why, sir, if Benson were to carry out his abolition feelings, he would set all his free; but I do not think he will do that; he certainly cannot, with any degree of consistency, refuse to adopt the mode of selling which I propose."

  "I should hope not," said the Major; "if he were to sell them, so as to separate members of the same family, it would cause great anguish to my wife and myself."

  "If he does that, sir, my opinion of him will be very much changed; I have always thought, however, that this abolition movement did not proceed from real sympathy for slaves, but from a desire for agitation, and from a disposition to meddle with matters that does not at all concern them. This will afford an opportunity of testing Benson's real feelings upon the subject, where his pecuniary interest is to be affected by a true and bona fide exercise of benevolent feelings towards the slave."

  Mrs. Scott then came into the room, and was told by the Major of George's contemplated visit to California. She appeared much agitated, but her heart was too full for any expression of dissent, and she employed herself at work, in profound silence. George joined Julia, whom he saw in the garden.

  "Well, Julia," he said, "I have broken the ice, and informed your father and mother of my intention to take you to California."

  "Have you made up your mind positively to go, George? I thought you would have taken longer time to consider of it."

  "I can't say, Julia, that my mind is positively made up and settled, but I think the chances are in favour of our going, particularly as your father seems reconciled to it. I fully appreciate, Julia, the sacrifice which you are willing to make for our mutual benefit, and the return which I feel myself bound to make you for so much confidence, and so ready a desire to consult my wishes, and

  "George, I feel very confident that you will make that effort, and I think I shall have a right to claim it, after having made the greatest of all sacrifices I could possibly make to gratify your wishes; exchanging a home endeared to me by the presence of devoted parents, for one in a far distant land, among strangers, where, if reports are true, the prospects for comfort, ease, and happiness, are anything but flattering."

  "I have no doubt, Julia, that those prospects are brightening every day, and that we shall spend five years very pleasantly in Francisco."

  "It may be so, George, but I shall remain sceptical until experience has taught me otherwise. What do your Aunt Priscilla and Evelina think of your going?"

  "Oh, as to that, Aunt Pris thinks that if I go anywhere beyond the reach of her lectures, I'm a doomed man, and Evelina has some little matters of her own to engross her thoughts."

  "I thought nothing could divert her thoughts from you, George, for she has always appeared to me to be the most devoted sister I have ever known."

  "I believe Lina loves me very sincerely; but you know, Julia, there are two kinds of love; the one a sort of natural feeling, and the other—what shall I call the other, Julia?—an indescribable something, that throws nature all a-back; a little monopolist, ain't it? that shuns the rivalry of nature's—do help me out, Julia, in my awkward description; you know something about it, don't you?"

  Julia blushed, and ran into the house.