University of Virginia Library

The name and character of the friend and compagnon du
voyage, mentioned in the foregoing epistle, was more fully
disclosed the next day, by the following editorial notice in
The Blazing Star, which came into town, all damp from the
press of Mill-Town Emporium: —

“BASENESS EXPOSED!

“Our flourishing village was thrown into confusion this
morning, by the discovery that our village schoolmaster,
Blake by name, — if that be his true name, — had decamped,
having artfully obtained the wages for the full term of his
engagement, but a little more than half of which he had
fulfilled. Some fears are also entertained respecting the
value of a pretended jewelled watch which he lately sold to
one of our citizens for fifty dollars; but enough has been
said to caution the public, which, as faithful journalists, was
our duty to do. There can be but little doubt that the fellow

was an impostor. And our political patrons will not be surprised
to learn, that his politics, though he at first professed
to hold to our true doctrines, turned out to be in unison with
those of that party from whom such things are to be expected.
— Ed. Blazing Star.”

It was now evident that the dashing professor, and his less
accomplished, though scarcely less superficial friend, Blake,
who, as the reader will remember, was Amsden's successful
rival in the competition for the Mill-Town school, were confederate
impostors. But what had been the nature of their
previous connection, or whether their career had been marked
by outright villanies, or merely by petty impositions on
the public, was not known for nearly a fortnight; when a
young merchant from New York, arriving on a visit to his
relatives in the village, reported that he had encountered,
soon after leaving the city, the bride, her husband, and his
friend; and soon recognized the two last-named worthies as a
couple of fourth-rate actors, or some other unimportant adjuncts
of one of the city theatres, from which they had both
been driven in disgrace about two years before; after which
they had occasionally been heard from, perambulating the
country in the same direction; one — that is, Tilden — pretending
to lecture on elocution, the art of reading, &c., and
the other obtaining unauthorized subscriptions for periodicals.
And these important and honest employments, it was thus
made probable, they had pursued, till the former found an
inviting opening for his versatile talents in a new character
among the would-be fashionables of Cartersville, and afterwards
another, for his congenial friend, in Mill-Town Emporium.

This was indeed a mortifying development for the proud
Carters; and the females especially, who had never dreamed
of any of their number marrying any thing short of counts,

congress-men, or something equally high-sounding, could
hardly hold up their heads, under the keen sense of the disgrace
which they conceived had been brought on their family.
Mr. Carter, however, who cared little for any other family
distinction than what property, or at least the certainty of a
good living, would confer — still had some hopes that his
daughter, rash as she had been, might after all have married
a man of enterprise, integrity, and capacity sufficient to
maintain her respectably from his own resources. But the
solace of even these faint hopes was soon taken from him.
In a few days more, he himself received a letter from his
deluded child, the main points of which were evidently dictated
by her husband.

After excusing herself for the step she had taken in the
best way she could, and speaking of her prospects in a much
more moderate tone than that which pervaded her letter to
her sister on her departure, she told her father that she felt
very sure, whatever might happen, that he would never let her
want money to support her in the style in which he had brought
her up; and then she added, that Tilden — it was now plain
Tilden — had met with a chance to invest her portion to
very great advantage, and was very anxious, for her sake, to
have it sent on, in drafts on some bank or commercial house
in the city. The amount, she said, could not be less than
twenty thousand dollars; but she would be content, at present,
with ten thousand. This she begged of her father not to
neglect sending in a few days, as it would make her husband
so much happier. And in a postscript she repeated, “Do
not fail to send on the drafts.”

This was too much for the old gentleman, who, being by
no means wanting in sagacity, now at once read the true
character of Tilden, and the base motives which had governed
him in drawing the weak and unsuspecting girl into
this clandestine marriage.

“Ten thousand!” he exclaimed to himself, as, hurling the
letter into the fire, he hastily strode round his counting-room
in a paroxysm of exasperated feeling — “ten thousand!
Quite modest, truly! O! the worthless, fortune-hunting
scoundrel! Ten thousand! He will be apt to get it, I
think. But what will become of the poor, deceived, ruined
girl?” he continued, his indignation softening into pity. “If
she ever gets rid of the villain, I hope there may be that
sum left for her. But the rig these women have run! And
I, like a fool, have yielded to it! I fear — I fear, that this
disaster to my family will prove but the forerunner of worse
ones. Heaven help me!”

The words of the distressed and foreboding father were
but too prophetic; for this was the first of a series of misfortunes
which were destined to fall, in rapid succession,
upon this house of folly, and level its vain-glorious pretensions
with the dust. But, as this will appear by pursuing
the main thread of our narrative, we will now return to our
hero.

As the reader may have perhaps already anticipated, the
disgraceful flight of Tilden, and the disclosures that followed,
respecting not only his character and false pretensions, but
the base slanders he had originated, operated as a proud
triumph to Amsden and his school. Many a man is indebted
for his character almost wholly to contrast. And if such be
the effect — as under favoring circumstances it often is — of
a contrast between the demerits of one, and the mere negative
qualities of another, in conferring character on the
latter, it would be strange, indeed, if the operation of this
principle, under circumstances so well calculated to call it
into action, did not greatly tend to bring one of Amsden's
high desert into notice, and place him on the elevation to
which his merits entitled him. It did so. The very measures
that Tilden had taken for the disparagement and ruin

of his rival were now the means of turning the minds of
the public to a comparison between the two, and of causing
thereby to be done to the latter that justice which he otherwise
might never have obtained. All the pupils that, on
different pretences, had been withdrawn from his school, were
at once permitted to return. The professor's Academy of
Elegant Literature became, by the association with its
doughty projector, a theme of ridicule; and the empty, and
worse than empty, accomplishments it afforded, soon began to
be accounted — as the miserable scientific tinselings imparted
by hundreds of other similar establishments in our land
under the name of accomplishments deserve to be accounted —
less a term of honor than reproach. Even those ultra genteel
families who had only patronized the select or private
school system, now sent in their children, and began to open
their eyes to the solid advantages to be obtained from common
schools, under well-qualified instructers. The remainder
of our hero's term of engagement, therefore, was marked
with a success that amply repaid him for all his previous
toils and vexations; and his labors now became as pleasant
for himself as they were profitable to his pupils.

It was now past the middle of April. The period for
which Amsden had concluded to continue his instructions
had at length drawn to a close; and the time had arrived
when he was called to that interesting yet mournful task for
a teacher — the parting with his pupils, on the last day and
hour of his school.

The tie that obtains between instructer and pupil, where
the right feelings have been cherished and reciprocated, is
one of peculiar interest. It consists, in the bosom of the
one, of that tender regard, that disinterested affection, which
is made up of several of the best and strongest propensities of
our nature — the compassionate and kindly inclination which
the conscious strong are prone to entertain towards the weak

and dependent; the regard which is engendered towards
those with whom habit has made us familiar, and the peculiar
favor with which we are wont to view our own creations, as
the minds, manners, and characters of those we have successfully
taught, may be considered; — in the bosom of one,
it consists of this. In that of the other, the tie is composed
of that reverential esteem which is founded in the blended
principles of gratitude for benefits received, and the inherent
respect which is ever felt for superior powers, all combining to
form the purest and the most exalted friendship that ennobles
the human heart. The connection, indeed, has about it a
beautiful patriarchal character, which renders it one of the
most interesting relations in the world. And few can look
back to the final parting with a respected and beloved instructer,
without the most grateful emotions.

The parting hour, as we have said, had come — too soon
come. The farewell address, fraught with many an allusion
to all that could be remembered for praise in the past, many
a kind word of advice for the future, and many an affectionate
wish for the individual prosperity and happiness of each
and all of the eloquently silent and often tearful little auditory,
was spoken, and the word of final dismissal reluctantly
pronounced. With a thoughtful and solemn quietness of
manner, little resembling the noisy glee of other occasions,
the books were gathered; and one by one the dispersing band
came up, took the proffered hand of their loved instructer,
uttered the subdued good-bye, and departed. But why was
that hand, as if too busy with other occupations, so long
withheld from one more tenderly regarded than all the rest?
And why did she, without concert or request, still linger, till
the last adieu had been spoken, and the last retreating form
disappeared from the room — still linger to receive it? And
why, in the hesitating, tremulous, and prolongued grasp that
then followed, was no farewell, no word, no syllable, or

sound, uttered? Why were these two, whose thoughts on
science, literature, the sentiments, or other general topics,
ever seemed to flow together, like two uniting streams from
fountains of kindred purity and clearness, and whose tongues
ever before grew eloquent in the converse which was sure
to spring up between them, and which never wearied, — why
were two like these dumb now? There are states of feeling,
when the strong, deep-laid elements of the heart are stirred,
which seem wholly to reject the utterance of language, —
sometimes because words must fail of an adequate expression,
and sometimes because those feelings are so consciously
sacred, that they involuntarily shrink from the conceived
profanation of such a medium. Both of these cases might
have been combined at this parting between Locke Amsden
and Mary Maverick. Be that as it may, the quivering lip
and the agitated countenance of the one, and the quick-heaving
bosom and the gushing eye of the other, as, from the long
mute grasp they turned hurriedly away, constituted the only
language that told the sensations of their hearts. It had
never spoken before; but it had spoken distinctly now, revealing
to them, for the first time, their own and each other's
secret, and apprising them that the deep, unanalyzed, unacknowledged
feeling, that had been sleeping and gathering
strength in their attracted bosoms, had a name; and that
its name was only to be found in the magic word, Love.