"How you grow, Charley," said John, tossing him up on his shoulder, and walking up to the looking-glass. "It seems but yesterday that you lay wrapped up in your blanket a-board Captain Lucas' ship with your thumb in your mouth (that unfailing sign of a good-natured baby), thinking of nothing at all; and now here you are six years' old to-day—think of that man? and I dare say you expect a birth-day present."

"Yes, if you please," said Charley.

"There, now; that is to the point. I like an honest boy. What will you have, Charley?"

"Something pretty for my mamma," said the loving little heart.

"Better still," said John; "but mamma won't take presents. I have tried her a great many times. There is one I want very much to make her, but she always says 'No.'" And John glanced at Gertrude.

"Mind what you say," whispered his sister. "He might chance to repeat it to his mother."

"So much the better, Gertrude. Then she will be sure to think of me at least one minute.

"But, Charley, tell me what you want. I would like to get you something for yourself."

"I want my papa," said Charley, resolutely. "Tommy Fritz keeps saying that I 'haven't got any papa.' Haven't I got a papa, cousin John?"

"You have a Father in heaven," said John, kissing Charley as he evaded the earnest question.

"When did he die? I want you to tell me all about him, cousin John, because Tommy Fritz sits next me at school and teases me so about not having any papa."

"Fritz?" repeated John, turning to Gertrude; "Fritz?—the name sounds familiar. Where could I have heard it? Fritz?" and John paced up and down the room, trying to remember.

"Yes, Tommy Fritz," repeated Charley; "and Tommy's big brother comes to school with him some days, and he saw me, and told Tommy that I hadn't any papa."

"Did you say any thing to your mamma about it?" asked John.

"No," said Charley, with a very resolute shake of the head, "because it always makes mamma look so sad when I talk to her about papa; but I don't want Tommy to plague me any more. Is it bad not to have a papa, cousin John?"

"There are a great many little boys whose papas are dead," said John. "Yes, it is bad for them, because they feel lonesome without them, just as you do."

Charley looked very earnestly in John's face, as if he were not satisfied with his answer, and yet as if he did not know how better to make himself understood. Looking thoughtfully on the ground a few moments, he said—

"Was my papa good, cousin John?"

John drew Charley closer to his breast. "I did not know your papa, my dear, but your mamma loves him very much, and she is so good herself that I think she would not love him so were he not a good man."

"I'm so glad!" exclaimed Charley, with sparkling eyes. "May I tell Tommy Fritz that?" he asked, with the caution acquired by too early an acquaintance with sorrow.

"Certainly," said John, secretly resolving to inquire into this Fritz matter himself.

"Your mother is calling you, Charley," said Gertrude. "Poor little fellow," she added, as he ran nimbly out of the room. "Just think of a child with such a frank outspoken nature, burying such a corroding mystery in his own loving little heart, rather than pain his mother by asking for a solution. Poor Rose—the haunting specter which her prophet-eye discerned in her child's future, has assumed shape sooner than even she dreamed. Who can this 'big Fritz' be, John? and where could he have known Rose?"

"I have it," exclaimed John, stopping suddenly before his sister, with a deep red flush upon his face. "This Fritz was a fellow-passenger of Rose's and mine on board Captain Lucas's vessel. The conceited puppy imagined that Rose would save him the trouble of gathering her by dropping at his feet—he found thorns instead of a rose, and his wounded vanity has taken this mean revenge. But he shall learn Rose has a protector," said John, folding his arms, and closing his lips firmly together.

"I shall do nothing rashly," said he, shaking off the clasp of Gertrude's hand. "Puppy"—he exclaimed—"contemptible coward, with all his pretensions to the title of a gentleman, to slander a woman!"

"Defining the word gentleman in that way," answered Gertrude, "the ranks would be pretty well thinned out. Some do it with a shrug—some with an uplifted eyebrow—some with a curl of the lip—some with a protracted whistle; and many a 'gentleman,' to make himself the paltry hero of the hour, has uttered boasting words of vanity, false as his own black heart; and many a virtuous woman has had occasion to repel insults growing out of this dastardly mention of her name before strangers, that else would never have been offered her. The crime is so common as to excite little or no reprehension, as to be little or no barrier in the intercourse between gentlemen. If every man who honors woman, and who finds himself in such unscrupulous society—testified his abhorrence by turning his back upon such a circle, the rebuke would soon tell. There are those whose standard of manly honor requires this in an associate.

"What! going, John?"

"Yes, I am too irritable to be good company; I must cool off my indignation by a walk in the open air. Go and sit with Rose, Gertrude; it may be that Charley may drop some word that will make known to her this new trouble."

"Never fear him," said Gertrude, "I don't know whether to call it instinct or tact, but he always seems to know what to say, and what to leave unsaid; he has the most lightning perceptions of any child I ever saw. No subtle shade of meaning in conversation seems to escape him, and he will often drop a remark which convinces you that he has grasped the subject at the very moment you are contriving some way to elucidate your meaning. Poor little Charley—it is always such natures whose heritage is sorrow."