"As soon as you can," the old man replied; then seizing Jacob by

the arm, with the words, "Let's go home now!" he hurried him on.
The explanation soon leaked out. Samuel Flint had not thrown away

his wealth, but had put it out of his own hands. It was given
privately to trustees, to be held for his son, and returned when

the latter should have married with his father's consent. There
was more than enough to buy the Whitney place.

Jacob and Susan are happy in their stately home, and good as they
are happy. If any person in the neighborhood ever makes use of the

phrase "Jacob Flint's Journey," he intends thereby to symbolize the
good fortune which sometimes follows honesty, reticence, and

shrewdness.
CAN A LIFE HIDE ITSELF?

I had been reading, as is my wont from time to time, one of the
many volumes of "The New Pitaval," that singular record of human

crime and human cunning, and also of the inevitable fatality which,
in every case, leaves a gate open for detection. Were it not for

the latter fact, indeed, one would turn with loathing from such
endless chronicles of wickedness. Yet these may be safely

contemplated, when one has discovered the incredible fatuity of
crime, the certain weak mesh in a network of devilishtexture; or

is it rather the agency of a power outside of man, a subtile
protecting principle, which allows the operation of the evil

element only that the latter may finally betray itself? Whatever
explanation we may choose, the fact is there, like a tonic medicine

distilled from poisonous plants, to brace our faith in the
ascendancy of Good in the government of the world.

Laying aside the book, I fell into a speculationconcerning the
mixture of the two elements in man's nature. The life of an

individual is usually, it seemed to me, a series of
RESULTS, the processes leading to which are not often visible,

or observed when they are so. Each act is the precipitation of a
number of mixed influences, more or less consciously" target="_blank" title="ad.无意识地；不觉察地">unconsciously felt; the

qualities of good and evil are so blended therein that they defy
the keenest moral analysis; and how shall we, then, pretend to

judge of any one? Perhaps the surest indication of evil (I further
reflected) is that it always tries to conceal itself, and the

strongest incitement to good is that evil cannot be concealed. The
crime, or the vice, or even the self-acknowledged weakness, becomes

a part of the individual consciousness" target="_blank" title="n.意识；觉悟；知觉">consciousness; it cannot be forgotten or
outgrown. It follows a life through all experiences and to the

uttermost ends of the earth, pressing towards the light with a
terrible, demoniac power. There are noteless lives, of course--

lives that accept obscurity, mechanically run their narrow round of
circumstance, and are lost; but when a life endeavors to lose

itself,--to hide some conscious guilt or failure,--can it succeed?
Is it not thereby lifted above the level of common experience,

compelling attention to itself by the very endeavor to escape it?
I turned these questions over in my mind, without approaching, or

indeed expecting, any solution,--since I knew, from habit, the
labyrinths into which they would certainly lead me,--when a visitor

was announced. It was one of the directors of our county
almshouse, who came on an errand to which he attached no great

importance. I owed the visit, apparently, to the circumstance that
my home lay in his way, and he could at once relieve his

conscience of a very triflingpressure and his pocket of a small
package, by calling upon me. His story was told in a few words;

the package was placed upon my table, and I was again left to my
meditations.

Two or three days before, a man who had the appearance of a "tramp"
had been observed by the people of a small village in the

neighborhood. He stopped and looked at the houses in a vacant way,
walked back and forth once or twice as if uncertain which of the

cross-roads to take, and presently went on without begging or even
speaking to any one. Towards sunset a farmer, on his way to the

village store, found him sitting at the roadside, his head resting
against a fence-post. The man's face was so worn and exhausted

that the farmer kindly stopped and addressed him; but he gave no
other reply than a shake of the head.

The farmer thereupon lifted him into his light country-wagon, the
man offering no resistance, and drove to the tavern, where, his

exhaustion being so evident, a glass of whiskey was administered to
him. He afterwards spoke a few words in German, which no one

understood. At the almshouse, to which he was transported the same
evening, he refused to answer the customary questions, although he

appeared to understand them. The physician was obliged to use a
slight degree of force in administering nourishment and medicine,

but neither was of any avail. The man died within twenty-four
hours after being received. His pockets were empty, but two small

leathern wallets were found under his pillow; and these formed
the package which the director left in my charge. They were full

of papers in a foreign language, he said, and he supposed I might
be able to ascertain the stranger's name and home from them.

I took up the wallets, which were worn and greasy from long
service, opened them, and saw that they were filled with scraps,

fragments, and folded pieces of paper, nearly every one of which
had been carried for a long time loose in the pocket. Some were

written in pen and ink, and some in pencil, but all were equally
brown, worn, and unsavory in appearance. In turning them over,

however, my eye was caught by some slips in the Russian character,
and three or four notes in French; the rest were German. I laid

aside "Pitaval" at once, emptied all the leathern pockets
carefully, and set about examining the pile of material.

I first ran rapidly through the papers to ascertain the dead man's
name, but it was nowhere to be found. There were half a dozen

letters, written on sheets folded and addressed in the fashion
which prevailed before envelopes were invented; but the name was

cut out of the address in every case. There was an official permit
to embark on board a Bremen steamer, mutilated in the same way;

there was a card photograph, from which the face had been scratched
by a penknife. There were Latin sentences; accounts of expenses;

a list of New York addresses, covering eight pages; and a number of
notes, written either in Warsaw or Breslau. A more incongruous

collection I never saw, and I am sure that had it not been for
the train of thought I was pursuing when the director called

upon me, I should have returned the papers to him without troubling
my head with any attempt to unravel the man's story.

The evidence, however, that he had endeavored to hide his life, had
been revealed by my first superficialexamination; and here, I

reflected, was a singular opportunity to test both his degree of
success and my own power of constructing a coherent history out of

the detached fragments. Unpromising as is the matter, said I, let
me see whether he can conceal his secret from even such unpractised

eyes as mine.
I went through the papers again, read each one rapidly, and

arranged them in separate files, according to the character of
their contents. Then I rearranged these latter in the order of

time, so far as it was indicated; and afterwards commenced the work
of picking out and threading together whatever facts might be

noted. The first thing I ascertained, or rather conjectured, was
that the man's life might be divided into three very distinct

phases, the first ending in Breslau, the second in Poland, and the
third and final one in America. Thereupon I once again rearranged

the material, and attacked that which related to the first phase.
It consisted of the following papers: Three letters, in a female

hand, commencing "My dear brother," and terminating with "Thy
loving sister, Elise;" part of a diploma from a gymnasium, or high

school, certifying that [here the name was cut out] had
successfully passed his examination, and was competent to

teach,--and here again, whether by accident or design, the paper
was torn off; a note, apparently to a jeweller, ordering a certain

gold ring to be delivered to "Otto," and signed " B. V. H.;" a
receipt from the package-post for a box forwarded to Warsaw, to the

address of Count Ladislas Kasincsky; and finally a washing-list, at