‘Ah, good night, Monteagle. Here’s your Herald, and the rest of your papers.’
‘Thank you, Mr. G—, but,’ and Monteagle lowered his tone, while his cheek was flushed, ‘I’ll come in again—in fact—I’m penniless.’
‘Never mind that,’ replied the bookseller. ‘Here take the papers,’ and as he spoke, he slipped a twenty dollar piece into his hand.
‘Thank you—thank you,’ cried the grateful youth. ‘I expect a remittance from home to-morrow, and then I will repay you.’
But had Monteagle seen the expression of the bookseller’s manly face, he would have known that he was repaid already. His own noble heart approved the generous, and with him by no means unusual act.
On the morning succeeding, Monteagle had early taken his place in the Post Office line, (as extensive as that of Banquo’s issue which flitted before the eyes of the Scottish regicide,) awaiting the delivery of their letters.
This line is one of the most singular sights in the world, composed not only of representatives from every section of our own country, but from almost every nation on the face of the globe.
Monteagle was disappointed. There was no letter for him.
Only those who have been thousands and thousands of miles away from home, can understand the full effect of this crushing disappointment. Instantly the mind conjures up many dismal reasons as the cause of the non-arrival of the expected letters. What can be the matter?—Have our friends forgotten us, has sickness wasted the hand that used to seize the pen with such avidity to tell us all the warm feelings the writers entertained for us? Or has death forever stilled the beatings of those hearts we dearly loved?
Months we know must elapse ere these questions can have a response, and in the meanwhile we must experience all the bitterness of hope deferred.