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This completes the linear measurements of passages and apartments. Adding the whole together, they amount only to the onefifteen hundred and ninetieth part of the entire mass; the rest, so far as known at present, is solid stone, weighing nearly seven million tons.—Robert Morris, LL.D., in ' Our Monthly.'

ROOM AT THE TOP.

To the young men annually making their entrance upon active life, with great ambitions, conscious capacities, and high hopes, the prospect is, ninety-nine cases in a hundred, most perplexing. They see every avenue to prosperity thronged with their superiors in experience, in social advantages, and in the possession of all the elements and conditions of success. Every post is occupied, every office filled, every path crowded. Where shall they find room? It is related of Mr. Webster that when a young lawyer suggested to him that the profession to which he devoted himself was overcrowded, the great man replied: Young man, there is always room at the top.' Never was a wiser or more suggestive word said. There undoubtedly is always room enough where excellence lives. Mr. Webster was not troubled for lack of room. When Nelaton died in Paris, he died like Moses on the mountain. When Von Graefe died in Berlin, he had no neighbour at his altitude.

It is well, first, that all young men remember that nothing will do them so much injury as quick and easy success, and that nothing will do them so much good as a struggle which teaches them exactly what there is in them, educates them gradually to its use, instructs them in personal economy, drills them into a patient and persistent habit of work, and keeps them at the foot of the ladder until they become strong enough to hold every step they are enabled to gain. The first year of every man's business or professional life are years of education. They are intended to be, in the order of nature and Providence. Doors are not open to a man until he is prepared to enter them. The man without a wedding garment may get in surrepticiously, but he immediately goes out with a flea in his ear. We think it is the experience of most successful men who have watched the course of their lives in retrospect, that whenever they have arrived at a point where they were thoroughly prepared to go up higher, the door to a higher place has swung back of itself, and they have heard the call

to enter. The old die, or voluntarily retire for rest. The best men who stand ready to take their places will succeed to their position and its honours and emoluments.

The young men will say that only a few can reach the top. That is true, but it is also true that the further from the bottom one goes the more scattering the neighbourhood. One can fancy, for illustration, that every profession and every calling is pyramidal in its living constituency, and that, while only one man is at the top, there are several tiers of men below him who have plenty of elbow-room, and that it is at the base that men are so thick that they pick the meat out of one another's teeth to keep them from starving. If a man has no power to get out of the rabble at the bottom, then he is selfconvicted of having chosen a calling or profession to whose duties he has no adaptation.

The grand mistake that young men make, during the first ten years of their business and professional life, is in idly waiting for their chance. They seem to forget, or they do not know, that during those ten years they enjoy the only leisure they will ever have. After ten years, in the natural course of things, they will be absorbingly busy. There will then be no time for reading, culture, and study. If they do not become thoroughly grounded in the principles and practical de tails of their profession during those years; if they do not store their minds with useful knowledge; if they do not pursue habits of reading, and observation, and social intercourse, which result in culture, the question whether they will ever rise to occupy a place where there is room enough for them will be decided in the negative. The young physicians and young lawyers who sit idly in their offices, and smoke and lounge away the time' waiting for something to turn up, are by that course fastening themselves for life to the lower stratum, where their struggle for a bare livelihood is to be perpetual. The first ten years are golden years, that should be filled with systematic reading and observation. Every thing that tends to professional and personal excellence should be an object of daily pursuit. To such men the doors of success open of themselves at last. Work seeks the best hands as naturally as water runs down hill; and it never seeks the hands of a trifler, or of one whose only recommendation for work is that he needs it. Young men do not know very much any way, and the time always comes to those who become worthy, when they look back with wonder upon their early good opinion of their acquirements and themselves.

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There is another point that ought not to be overlooked in the treatment of this subject. Yonng men look about them and see a great measure of worldly success awarded to men without principle. They see the trickster crowned with public honours; they see the swindler rolling in wealth; they see the sharp man, the over-reaching man, the unprincipled man, the liar, the demagogue, the time-server, the trimmer, the scoundrel who cunningly manages, through constantly disobeying moral law and trampling upon social courtesy, to keep himself out of the clutches of the legal police, carrying off the prizes of wealth and place. All this is a demoralizing puzzle, and a fearful temptation; and multitudes of young men are not strong enough to stand before it. They ought to understand that in this wicked world there is a great deal of room where there is integrity. Great trusts may be sought by scoundrels, but great trusts never seek them; and perfect integrity is at a premium even among scoundrels. There are some trusts that they will never confer on each other. There are occasions when they need the services of true men, and they do not find them in shoals and in the mud, but alone and in pure water.

In the realm of eminent acquirements and eminent integrity there is always room enough. Let no young man of industry and perfect honesty despair because his profession or calling is crowded. Let him always remember that there is room enough at the top, and that the question whether he is ever to reach the top, or rise above the crowd at the base of the pyramid, will he decided by the way in which he improved the first ten years of his active life in securing to himself a thorough knowlege of his profession, and a sound moral and intellectual culture.-Dr. J. G. Holland.

HETTY MARVIN.

AN AMERICAN NARRATIVE.

WHEN the British and Tories attacked New London, Conn., in 17—, and set a price on the head of Governor Griswold, the latter fled to the town of L where his cousin, Mrs. Marvin, hid him for some days in a secluded farm-house. But at length the subtle foe discovered his retreat, and one sunny afternoon in May he was routed from his hiding-place by the tidings that a band of horsemen were approaching to capture him.

His only chance of escape was to reach the mouth of a little creek

which emptied itself into the Connecticut river, just above the entrance of the latter into the Long Island Sound. There he had a boat stationed, with two faithful attendants hidden beneath the high banks of the creek. The distance from the farm-house to the bcat was two miles by the usual travelled road. But a little path across the farmers' orchards would bring him to the road, only a mile from the boat, and save a quarter's length of his fearful run for life.

Just where the narrow path from the orchard opened into the road, Hetty Marvin sat, with her dog Towser, tending the bleaching of her household linen. The long web of forty yards or more, which was diligently spun and woven during the long winter months, was whitened in May, and thus made ready for use. The business of bleaching was well economized, being usually done by the younger daughters of the family, who were not old enough to spin, or strong enough for the heavier work of the kitchen or the dairy.

The roll of linen was taken by the farmer or his stout 'help' to a grassy plat, beside a spring or a meadow brook. There it was thoroughly wetted and spread upon the green turf, to take the best heat of the sun by day and the dew by night. The little maiden who tended it would sit near.

Thus sat Hetty Marvin, the young daughter of Governor Griswold's cousin, when her hunted friend sprang past her, into the road, to escape his pursuers. Hetty was a timid child of about twelve years: yet thoughtful and wise beyond any of her elders. She was frightened by the headlong haste with which the governor rushed across the meadow. But she quickly comprehended the scene, and instantly quieted her faithful Towser, who, though a friend of the family guest, thought it becoming to bark loudly at his hurried steps.

Her wise forethought arrested the governor's notice, and suggested a scheme to delude his pursuer. 'Hetty,' he said, earnestly, I am flying for my life; and unless I can reach my boat before I am overtaken, I am a lost man. You see the road forks here. But you must tell those who are chasing me that I have gone up the road to catch the mail wagon, which will soon be along, you know. Then they will turn off the other way.'

'O cousin,' said the little girl, in an agony of distress, 'I cannot tell a lie; indeed, I cannot. Why did you tell me which way you were going?'

'Hetty, dear child, surely you would not betray me to my death! Hark! they are coming,-I hear the click of their horses' feet.

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Hetty, tell them I have gone up the road instead of down; and Heaven will bless you.'

'Heaven never blesses those who speak falsely, cousin! But I will not tell them which way you go, even if they kill me; so run as quickly as possible.'

'It's of no use, unless I can deceive them, I am a dead man.'

'Cousin, cousin, hide under my web of cloth; they'd never think of looking here for you. Come, get down as swift as you can; and I'll cover you, and stand sprinkling my linen.'

'It's my only chance, child; I'll get down as you say.' And suiting the action to the word, the governor was soon hidden under the folds of the cloth.

Angry that their expected prey had escaped from the house where they hoped to secure him, the six mounted Tories, headed by a British officer, dashed along the road in swift pursuit. At sight of the girl in the meadow, the leader of the party paused.

'Child,' he said sternly, 'have you seen a man running hereabouts ?'

'Yes, sir,' replied Hetty, trembling and flushing.

'Which way did he go?

'I promised not to tell, sir.'

'But you must or take the consequences."

'I said I wouldn't tell, if you killed me,' sobbed the frightened girl. 'I'll have it out of her,' exclaimed the furious officer, with an oath. 'Let me speak to her,' said his Tory guide; 'I know the child, I believe, Isn't your name Hetty Marvin ?' he asked pleasantly. 'Yes, sir.'

'And this man that ran by you a few minutes ago, was your mother's cousin, wasn't he?'

'Yes, sir, he was.'

'Well, we are friends of his; what did he say to you when he came along ?'

'He told me that he was flying for his life.'

'Just So, Hetty; that was very true. I hope he won't have to fly far. Where was he going to hide ? you see I could help him if I knew his plans.'

Now Hetty was not a whit deceived by this smooth speech. But she was willing to tell as much of the truth as would be consistent with his safety, and she wisely judged that her frankness would serve

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