A calm observer who has scarcely lived half the age of man, must look back with a smile at human frailty, rather than with a harsher feeling upon the subjects that have broken the world in which he has lived, (be it a little or a great one,) into opposed and contending parties. The stream for a while glides on with an unbroken surface, a snag interposes, and the waters divide, and fret, and foam around it till chance or time sweep it away, when they again commingle, and flow on in their natural unruffled union. This is the common course of human passions. The subject in dispute may be more or less dignified; the succession to an empire, or to a few acres of sterile land; the rival claims of candidates to the Presidency, or the competitors for a village clerkship; the choice of a minister to England, or the minister of our parish; the position of a capital city, or of an obscure meeting house; the excellence of a Catalini, or of a rustic master of psalmody; a dogma in religion or politics; in short anything, to which, as with the shield in the fable, there are two sides.

Some who have lived to swell the choral song to Adams and Jefferson, and blend their names in one harmonious peal, will remember when the one, in his honest estimation, was a patriot hero, and the other the arch enemy of his country. For myself, having been bred, according to the strictest sect of my political religion, a federalist, I regarded Mr. Jefferson, (whom all but his severest enemies do not now deny, to have been a calm, and at least well-intentioned philosopher,) as embodying in his own person whatever was impracticable, heretical and corrupt in politics, religion and morals. Some impressions of my early childhood which were connected with the subsequent fate of obscure but interesting individuals, have preserved a vivid recollection of those party strifes that should now only be remembered to assuage the heat of present controversies.

1. A note on the text. This short story has been transcribed verbatim from the version that appeared in the first edition of Tales and Sketches (1835). The title page of that volume reads: Tales and Sketches by Miss Sedgwick, author of "The Linwoods," "Hope Leslie," &c., &c. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, and Blanchard. 1835. Sedgwick's own footnotes are clearly identified below; I have also added several explanatory notes. All of the original spelling and punctuation have been preserved. Editor: Lucinda Damon-Bach, Professor of English, Salem State College, Salem, Massachusetts.

2. This fruitful subject of dispute has rent asunder many a village society in New England. [Sedgwick's note.]

"'Do not ask me, mother; I cannot give up the name I love and honour above all others, for that----' I know not what the poor boy might have said, for his mother stopped him. 'Listen to me, my son,' she said, 'my breath is almost spent; you know how I have been punished for one act of disobedience; how much misery I brought on your dear fatehr, on all of us; you may repair my fault. Oh,gfive me peace, promise to be faithful in your mother's place to her father.'"

"'I will promise any things, dear mother; I will do any thing but take his name.'"

"'All is useless without that;' her voice sunk to a whisper,--'dear, dear child,' she added, 'it is my last wish.' I saw her countenance was changing, and I believe I said, 'she is going,' and poor Randolph cried out, 'Mother, mother, I will do every thing you ask--I promise----' a sweet smile spread over her face. He laid his cheek to her's [sic] she tried to kiss him, but her lips never moved agian, and in a few moments, my dear Fanny, she was with the saints in heaven."

Fanny's tears had coursed down her cheeks as her father had proceeded in his narration. Soon after I heard her repeating to herself, "Randolph Hayford, Randolph Hayford; I will never call him anything but Randolph; but I soppose I shall not often have a chance to call him anything. That cross old Squire Hayford hates you so, father, he'll never let Randolph come and see us; he'll never let him go anywhere but to some dirty democrat's."

I now look back, almost unbelieving of my own recollections, at the general diffusion of the political prejudices of htose times. No age onr sex was exempt from them. They adhered to an old man to the very threshold of another world, and they sometimes clouded the serene heaven of such a mind as my firend Fanny Atwood's.

The rival parties in Carrington w3ere so nearly balancred, that each individual's weight was felt in the scale. All qualities and relations were merged in the politcal attribute. I have often heard, when the bell tolled the knell of a departed neighbour, the most kind hearted person say, "we" or "they have lost a vote!" Good Doctor Atwood was a sturdy in his political as in his religious faith. He had a vein of humanity like my Uncle Toby's, that tempered his judgment in individual cases, but in the abstract, I rather think he believed that none but federalists and the orthodox, according to the sound school of the Mathers and Cottons, could enter the kingdom of heaven. With this creed, with an ardent temperament that glowed to the last hour of his life, and with the faculty of expressing pithily what he felt strongly, and without fear or awe of mortal man, he was, of course, loved almost to idolatry by his own party, and hated in equal measure by the rival faction.

I have said that the village street of Carrington traversed a hill and plain. The democrats for the most part occupied the hill. What an infected district it then seemed to me! The federalists (alas! Was it an augury of their descending forrtunes?) Lived in the vale. The most picturesque object in the village, and one as touching to the sentimental observer as Sterne's dead ass, was a superannuated horse; a poor commoner, who picked up an honest living by the way side. His walk was a sregular as Edie Ochiltree's, or any other licensed gaberlunzie's. He began in the morning, and grazing along, he arrived about midday at the end of his tour, h then crossed the street and returend, now aned then resting his weary limbs in the shadow of a tree lanted by the way side. Thus sped his innocent life. It was a naedifying sight to see the patience and satisfaction with which he gleaned his scanty portion of the bounties of nature. Jacques would have moralized on the spectacle. The children called him Clover, why, I know not, unlesss it were an allusion to his green old age. He was a great favourite with thelittle urchins; the youngest maont them were wont to make their first equestrian essays on Clover's bare back. My freind Fanny's gentle heart went out towards him in the respoect that waits on age. Many a time have I known her to bastract a measrue of oats from the parson's frugal store, and set It under the elm tree for Clover, and as she stood by him while he was eating, patting and stroking him, he would look round at her with an expression of mute gratitude and fondness, that words could not have rendered more intelligible.

Strange as it may seem, even poor Clover was converted into a political instrument. This "innocent beast and of a good conscience," was made to supply continual fuel to the inflammable passions of the fiery politicians of Carrington. His sides were past4ed over with lampoons in which the rival factions vented their wit or their malignity safe from personal responsibility, for Clover could tell no tales. Thus he trudged from the hill, a walking gazette, his ragged and grizzled sides covered with these militant missives, and returned bearing the responses of the valley, s unconscious of his hostile burden, as the mail is of its portentous contents. Sometimes, indeed, Clover carried that which was more acordant with his kind and loving nature.

As Fanny had predicted, after Randolph's removal to the great house, his grandfather prohibited his visits at Doctor Atwood's, but Fanny often met him in the lagging walk to school, berrying, nutting, and on all neutral gournd, and when they did not meet, they maintained a continual correspondence by Clover. The art was simply be which they secured their billetdoux from the public eye, but it sufficed. The inside contained the effusion of their hearts. The outside was scribbled with some current political sarcasm or joke. The initial letter of Randolphs' superscription was always F., Fanny's G., for she tenaciosly adhered to the name of Gordon. The communications were attached by the corners to Clover. I found recently among some forgotten papers one of Fanny's notes, and childish as it is, I shall make no apology for inserting it verbatim.

"Dear Randolph--I thank you a thousand times and so does C---, for the gold eagles. There never was anything in the world so beautiful, I do'nt believe. They are far before the grown up laides. We shall certainly wear them to meetin gnext Sabbath, and fix them so every body in the world can see them, and not let the bow of ribbon fall down over them, as Miss Clarke did last Sabbath, cause she has got that old democrat, Doctor Star, for a sweetheart; but I managed her nicely, Randolph. In prayer time when she did not dare move, I whirled round the bow so the eagle stood up bravely, and flashed right in doctor Star's eyes. I did not care so very much about having an eagle for myself, (though I do now since you have given it to me,) but I thought it very important for C--- to wear the federal badge, because her father is a senator in Congress. Father is almost as pleased as we are. I see Clover coming and I must make haste; poor old fellow! I heard his tread when it stormed so awfully last night, and I got father to put him up in our stable. Was not he proper good? It was after prayers, too, and his wig was off and his knee buckles out. There, they all go out of Deacon Garfield's to read Clover's papers. Good by, dear, dear Randolph. F.A."

If my readers are inclined to smile at the defects of my heorine's epistle, they must remember those were not the days when girls studied Algebra, and read Virgil in the original before they were ten years old. Besides, I have not claimed for Fanny intellectual brilliancy. The manifestations of her mind were (where some bel esprits last look for it,) in the conduct of her daily life.

But I am fondly lingering on the childhood of my friend. I must resolutely pass over the multitude of anecdotes that occur to me, to those incidents that are sufficiently dignified for publication.

Eight years flowed on without working any other change in the condition of my friends in Carrington than is commonly effected by the passage of time. Doctor Atwood continued his weekly ministrations, varied only by a slight verbal alteration in his prayer. During Mr. Adams's presidency, he implored the Lord to continue to us rulers endued with the spirit of their station. When Mr. Jefferson became chief magistrate, he substituted "give" for continue. Miss Sally still brewed and baked with her accustomed energy. Miss Nancy by the too lavish consumption of her own nostrums, had lost everything but her shadow. Squire Hayford was more opinionated and insufferable than ever. Poor old Clover was dead, and at Fanny's request, had been honourably interred beneath the elm tree, his favourite poste restante. Fanny had preserved the distinctive traits of her childhood, and at seventeen, was as good humoured, as simple, as lovely and, (as more than one thought,) far more loveable than when I first knew her.

The sad trials of Randolph's youth had early ripened his character, and had given to it an energy and self-government that he could have derived alone from the discipline of such circumstances. The lofty spirit of his father had fallen on him like the mantle of an ascending prophet. His mother's concentrated tenderness had fostered his sensibility, and the influence of her dying hour passed not away with the days of mourning, but stamped his whole after life.

Who has ever lost a friend, without that feeling so natural, that a painter of nature has put it into the mouth of a man lamenting over a dead beast? "I am sure thou has been a merciful master to him," said I. "Alas!" said the mourner, "I thought so when he was alive, but now that he is dead I think otherwise."

The solution of this universal lamentation and just suffereing, must be found in the fact that the very best fall far short of the goodness of which their Creator has made them capable. It is in the spirit of expiation that far more deference is paid to the wishes of the dead than the living; and affectionate and devoted as Randolph was to his mother, I doubt if she had lived, that she ever could have persuaded him to the sacrifices and efforts he made for her sake when she was dead. He immediately assumed the name of Hayford, without expressing a regret, even to Fanny; and accustomed as he had been to the control alone of his gentle mother, he submitted without a murmur to the petty and irritating tyrannies of his grandfather. He suppressed the expression of his opinions and surrendered his strongest inclinations at the squire's command. Never was there a case in which the sanctifying influence of a pure motive was more apparent. The same deference which Randolph paid to his relative, might have been rendered by a sordid dependant, but then where would have been that moral power which gave Randolph an ascendancy even over the narrow and unperceiving mind of this grandfather, and which achieved another and a more honourable triumph.

A Mrs. Hunt, a widowed sister of the squire, presided over the female department of his family. She was a well intentioned woman, a meek and patient drudge, who had been content to toil in his house year afete year, for the poorest of all compensations, presents; the common and wretched requital for the services of relations. Mrs. Hunt had been sustained in her endurance by a largess that now and then fell upon her eldest son, and by the hope that ultimately her brother's fortune would descend to her unportioned children. This hope was suddenly blighted by his adoption of Randolph; and Randolph, of course, became the object of her dislike, and he daily suffered those annoyances and discomforts which a woman always has in her power to inflict. To these he opposed a respectufl deportment; a midfulness of her convenience and comfort, and a generous attention to her children, which smoothed her rugged path, and all unused as she was to such humanities, won her heart. It was not long before the good woman found herself going to him, whom she had regarded as her natural enemy, for aid and sympathy in all her troubles.

If I am prosing, my readers must forgive me. It has always seemed to me that we may get the most useful lessons from those who are placed in circumstances not uncommon, nor striking, but to which a prallel may be found in every day's experience. It is a common doctrine, but one not favourable to virtue, that characters are formed by circumstances; and, by the best of all alchymy, he extracted wholesom food out of the material that might have been poison to another.

His boyish affection for Fanny Atwood had ripened into the tenderest love, and was fully returned, without my friend ever having endured the reserve and distrust that are supposed to be necessary to the progress of the passion. Trials their love, had, but they came form without. Dr. Atwood had heard the squire had said, "the parson might try his best to get his heir for his daughter Fannyl; he'd never catch his heir, though he caught Randolph!" The good doctor was a proud father, and a poor man, and, though it cost him many a heartache, he shut his doors against Randolph.

Meanwhile, the squire's self complacency in Randolph increased. The squire had the art of making everybody's merit or demerit minister to this great end of his being. He was proud of his takents, his scholarship and his personal elegance, though his facsimile resemblance to his father was so striking, that the squire was neveer heard to speak of his appearance, except to say, "what a crop of hair he has-just like all the Hayfords!"

There was one peculiarity about Randolph, that puzzled his grandfather. "The fellow is so inconsistent," said he to himself one day, after he had been reviewing his account books; "when he has money of his own earing, he pours it out like water; gave the widow fifty dollars last week, but he seems as afraid of spending my cash as if I exacted Jews' usury; quite contrary to the old rule, 'light come, light go.' I have footed it right; eight years since Mary died-day after we mistaken; he's got through college, fitted for the law, and I have paid out cash for him but ninety-nine pounds, five shillings, and three pence, lawful! By George! The widow's brood has cost me more in that time. Ah! It's number one after all; is sure of it at last, and that southern blood can't bear an obligation. Trust me for seeing into a millstone. I can tell him he'll have to wait; I feel as young as I did thirty years ago; sound grinders-good pulse-steady gait. Ten years to run up to three score, and ten may last to eighty. Grandmother Brown lived to ninety and upwards' why should not I? When I quit, am willing Randolph, (wish his name was Silas,) should have it. If it was not for that southern blood he'd be about the likeliest of the Hayfords. All his obstinacy comes from that 'I'll not disobey you, sir, and even if I would, Miss Atwood would not marry me without your consent; but be assured, sir, I shall never marry any other!' 'We'll see, my lord; while I can say nay, you shall never marry that old aristocrat's daughter. Just one-and ­twenty now; guess you'll sing another tune before you are twenty-five. Time to go up to the printing office; wonder if we shall have another Hampden this week----confounded smart fellow that."

Then looking at his watch and finding the happy hour for country ennuyes, the hour for the mail and daily lounge, had arrived, the squire sallied forth to take his morning walk to the printing office, the village reading room.
There was a weekly journal published in Carrington, the "Star," or "Sun," I forget which, but certainly the ascendant luminary of the democrat party. There had appeared, recently, in this journal, a series of articles written temperately, and with vigour and elegance, on the safety of a popular government.
The writer advocated an unlimited trust in the sanitive virtue of the people; he appeared familiar with the history of the republics that had preceded ours, and contended that there was no reason to infer our danger from their brief existence. He maintained, (and it will now perhaps be admitted with truth," that distrust of the people was the great error of the federalists; that the prestiges of the old gobernment still hung about them, and that they were committing a fatal mistake in applying old principles to a new condition of things.

These articles were read, lauded and republished. The name of the author was sought, but in vain. Even the printer and editor, ( I believe one individual personated both these august characters," were ignorant, and could only guess that it was judge----, or lawyer----, the lights of the state. But conjecture is not certainty, and the author still remained the "great unknown," not only of Carrington, but of the county and state.

The squire returned from his morning lounge with a fresh journal, containing a new article from Hampden, the signature of the unknown author. A fresh newspaper! Its vapour was as sweet a regale to the little vulgar pug-nose of our village politician as the dews of Helicon to the votaries of the muses. It so happened that Randolph was sitting in the parlour, readig, when the squire came in. "Have you seen the paper, this morning, Randolph?" he asked.

"No; I have not."

"I guess not, I have got the first that was struck off. Another article from Hampden, I understand. He is answered in the Boston Sentinel. They own he writes 'plausibly, ably and eloquently;" the d---- speaks truth for once. I guess the Boston chaps find their match at last." The squire had a habit not peculiar to him, but rather annoying, of reading aloud a passage that either pleased or displeased him, without any regard to the occupations of those around him. His comments, to, were always expressed aloud. He drew out his spectacles and sat down to the paper. His sister, Mrs. Hunt, was sewing in one corner of the room, and Randolph sitting opposite to him, but apparently absorbed in his book. "Too deuced cool," grumbled the squire, after reading the first passage. "Ah, he warms in the harness; not up to the mark, though; I wish he'd give 'em one of my pealers." "Good, good; wonder what the Centinel will say to that. By George, capital! I could not have writ it better. I would have put in more spice, though."

"Ha!" true as a prophet. Listen, Randolph." The squire then read aloud. "We are aware tht prediction is not argument, but we venture to prophesy that in twenty years from this time the federal party will have disappeared. The grandsire will have to explain the turn----"

"Term, sir," interposed Randolph.

"Yes, yes, term. The grandsire will have to explain the term to the child at his knee. We shall be a nation of republicans, and whenever----"

"Wherever, sir."

"So it is; wherever an American is found, at home or aboard----"

"Abroad, sir." This time there was a slight infusion of petulance in Randolph's tone, and still more in the squire's at the repeated interruptions as he proceeded.

"At home or abroad, in office or out of it, in high station or low, he will claim to be a Republican, and cherish the title as the noblest and happiest a civilian-"

"Citizen, sir-noblest and happiest a citizen can claim."

"confound you, Randolph!" exclaimed the squire, dropping the paper and fixing his eyes on his grandson; "how do you know the words before I speak them?" This was rather an exclamation of vexation than suspicion. Randolph was conscious that in involuntarily interposing to save his offspring from murder he had risked a secret, and he answered the squire's exclamation with a look of confusion that at once flashed the truth upon his obtuse comprehension. He jumped up, clapped Randolph on the shoulder, exclaiming, "you wrote it yourself, you dog, you can't deny it. It's a credit to you, a credit to the name. But you might have known I should have found you out. Just like all the Hayfords, keep every thing snug till out it comes with a crack."

"I thought all along," meekly, said Mrs. Hunt, who had been plying her needle unobserved and unobserving, "I thought all along cousin Randolph wrote them pieces."

"Now shut up, widow," retorted the squire, "you did not think no such thing; just like all fore-thoughts, come afterwards. Now, ma'am please to step out; I must have a little private conversation with Mr. Hampden."

"Be kind enough before you go, aunt," said Randolph, "to promise me that you will say nothing of what has just passed. I have made no admissions, and I do not wish to be thought the writer of the Hampden articles."

Mrs. Hunt, of course, promised fidelity. As soon as she was out of hearing, "What does that mean?" asked the squire. "It is all stuff to make a secret of it any longer."

"I think not, sir. The articles have far more reputation and influence, (if I may believe they have influence,) than if they were known to proceed from a young man whose name has no authority."

"Hoity-toity! Who's got a better name than yours? A'nt willing the Hayfords should have the credit, hey?" Randolph did not vouchsafe any reply to the squire's absurd mistake, and after a few moments his gratified vanity regained its ascendancy.

"The pieces please me," said he, "though if you had told me you were writing them I could have given you some hints that would have improved them. They want a little more said about men, less of principles. They want fire, too; egad, I'd send 'em red not bullets; but they'll do; you've come out like a man, on the right side, and now I believe what I felt scary about before." Here the squire paused, and fixed one of his most penetrating glances upon Randolph. "I believe you will vote to-morrow, and vote right." Randolph made no reply.

A few words will here be necessary to explain the dilemma in which Randolph was about to be placed. The annual election of a representative to the state legislature was to occur the next day. The rival parties in Carrington were known to their campions to be exactly balanced. There was not a doubtful vote except Randolph Hayford's. He had never yet voted, not having till now arrived at the requisite age. He had not thrown himself into the scale of either party. His opinions were independent, and independently expressed. The squire's hopes of his vote were very much encouraged by the Hampden articles, but still there were circumstances in this case that made him somewhat apprehensive.

"Your vote," resumed the squire, "will decide the election to-morrow." Again he paused, but without receiving a reply. "I can't have much doubt which way Hampden will vote, but I like to make all sure and fast. Randolph, I know what scion you want to see engrafted on that tree." The squire pointed to the only picture in his house, a family tree, that in a huge black frame stretched its frightful branches over the parlour fireplace. On these branches hung a regiment of militia captains, majors, colonels, sundry justices of the peace; precious fruit all, supported by an illustrious trunk, a certain Sir Silas Hayford, who flourished in the reign of Charles the Firs. Strange and inconsistent as it may appear with his ultra democracy, never was there a man prouder of his ancestral dignities, or more anxious to have them transmitted, than our village squire.

"Randolph," he continued, assured of success by the falling of Randolph's eye, and a certain half pleased, half anxious expression that overspread his face. "Randolph, I have always said that I never would give my consent to your marriage with that old aristocratic parson's daughter. But circumstances alter cases. I am a man that hears to reason when I approve of it. I have no fault to find with the girl; never heard her speak; believe she's well enough." Randolph bit his lips. How hard it is to hear an idolized object spoken of as if she were the mass of humankind. "To come to the point, Randolph,--if you'll go forward to-morrow like a man, and give in your vote for Martin and make Ross's scale kick the beam, I'll withdraw my opposition to this match. Hear me out. I'll do more for you. I'm pleased with you, Randolph. I've just received the money for my Genesee lands. I'll give you two hundred pounds to buy your law library, and you may go next week to any town in the state you like, and open your office, and be your own man, and take your girl there as soon as you like."

"Good Heaven!" exclaimed Randolph, "you can offer nothing more; the world has nothing more to tempt me." And he left the room in a state of agitation in which the squire had never before seen him. The squire called after him,--"Take time to consider, Randolph. To-morrow morning is time enough for your answer."

In the course of the evening, Randolph met Fanny Atwood. Whether the meeting was accidental, I cannot pretend to say. It would seem to have been disobedience in my friend to have kept up her intercourse with Randolph after the doctor had shut his doors upon him. But Fanny well knew there was nothing beside herself, the doctor loved so well as Randolph; nothing that in his secret heart he so much desired as to see them united, and that his resolute and rather harsh procedure in excluding Randolph from his house had been a sacrifice of his own inclinations to his honest pride. This being the state of the matter, it cannot appear strange that Fanny should be willing to meet him when

On the next morning, Randolph was absent, and Mrs. Hunt said, in answer to his grandfather's inquiries, that he had ridden to the next village on business, and had left word that he should return in time for the election .. The squire was excessively elated. He was on the point of obtaining a party triumph by the casting vote of his grandson; he should exhibit him for the first time in the democratic ranks, "enlisted for the war," with the new blown honours of Hampden thick upon him. There are elevated points in every man's life, and this morning was the Chimborazo of the squire's.

At the appointed hour the rival parties assembled at the meeting house; that being in most of our villages the only building large enough to contain the voters of the town, is, notwithstanding the temporary desecration, used as a political arena. There the rival parties met, as (with sorrow we confess it,) rival parties often meet in our republic, like the hostile forces of belligerent nations, as if they had no interest nor sentiment in common.

The balloting began. Randolph had not arrived. The squire, though not yet distrustful, began to fidget. He had taken his station beside the ballot box; a station which, in spite of its violation of the courtesies if not the principle of voting by ballot, is often occupied by eager village politicians, for the purpose of peering into the box, and detecting any little artifice by which an individual may have endeavoured to conceal his vote. Here stood the squire, turning his eyes from the door where he eagerly glanced in quest of Randolph, to the box, and giving a smile or scowl to every vote that was dropped in. "What keeps the parson back?" thought he, knitting his grisled brows, as he looked at Doctor Atwood, "he is always the first to push forward." This was true. The doctor's principle kindly coincided with his inclination in bringing him to the poll, but once having "put in his mite," as he said, "into the good treasury," he paid so much deference to his office, as immediately to withdraw from the battle-field.

The doctor had controlling reasons for lingering on this occasion. Fanny had acquainted him with Randolph's determination. The old man was touched with his young favourite's virtue, and the more (we must forgive something to human infirmity,) that Randolph's casting vote would decide the election in favour of the federal party. The balloting was drawing to a close, and still Randolph did not appear. The doctor now fully participated the squire's uneasiness. He took off his spectacles, wiped them over and over again, and strained his eyes up the road by which Randolph was to return.. It is not like him to flinch," thought the sturdy old man, "he is always up to the mark." Still, as the delay was prolonged his anxiety increased. "Better have come boldly out on their side that no one tainted with jacobinism could act an upright manly part. He writes well, to be sure; fine sentiments, but nothing so namby pamby as sentiment that is not backed up by conduct. Well, well; we are all in the hands of the Lord, and he may see fit yet to turn his heart; poor little Fanny; I'll throw in my vote and go home to her." The doctor gave one last look through the window, and now, to his infinite joy, he descried Randolph approaching. In a few moments more he entered the church. His vote had been a matter much debated and of vial interest to both parties. As he entered, every eye turned towards him, and a general murmur ran round the church. "He'll vote for us!" and "he'll vote for us!" passed from mouth to mouth, ans as usual the confident assertions were vouched by wagers. Whatever wrestlings with himself Randolph might have had in secret he was too manly to manifest his feelings to the public eye, and he walked up the aisle with his customary manner, revealing nothing by look or motion to the eager eyes of his observers; though there was enough to daunt or at least to fluster a man of common mettle, in the well known sound of the doctor's footsteps, shuffling after him, and in the aspect of the squire standing bolt upright before him; confidence and exultation seeming to elevate him a foot above his ordinary stature.

"Ha," thought he, "every man has his price; bait the hook with a pretty girl, and you'll be sure to catch these boys." At this critical moment, Randolph dropped in his vote. It was open, fairly exposed to the squire's eye, and it bore in legible, indubitable characters, the name of the Federal candidate. The doctor involuntarily grasped his hand, and whispered, "You have done your duty, my son, God bless you!"

Words cannot describe either the squire's amazement or his wrath. Randolph had presumed too far when he hoped that the decency due to a public meeting would compel his relative to curb his passion, till reflection should abate it. It burst forth in incoherent imprecations, reproaches, and denunciations; and Randolph, finding that his presence only served to swell the storm, retreated.

The votes were now counted, and notwithstanding Randolph's vote, and, contrary to all expectation, there proved to be a tie. Some federalist had been recreant. The balloting was repeated. Doctor Atwood had gone, and the democratic candidate was elected by a majority of one.

This unexpected good fortune turned the tide of the squire's feelings. His individual chagrin was merged in the triumph of his party. They adjourned to the tavern to celebrate their victory in the usual mode of celebrating events, by eating and drinking. Excitement had its usual effects on our unethereal squire, and he indulged his stimulated appetite somewhat beyond the bounds of prudence.

Even the tiger is said to be comparatively good natured on a full stomach. The squire's wrath was appeased by the same natural means; and when Hampden was toasted, he poured down a bumper, saying to his next neighbour as he did so, "I might have known that fellow with his nonsensical notions would have voted for the man he thought best of." The conviviality of our politicians continued to a late hour. Libations were poured out to all the bright champions of their party. The moderns unfortunately swallow their libations. Finally, the squire proposed a parting glass to "the confusion and overthrow of all monarchists, aristocrats, federalists, or despots, by whatever name called," and in the very act of raising it to his lips, he was seized with an apoplexy, which, in spite of his "sound grinders, full pulse, steady gait, and grandmother Brown having lived to ninety," carried him off in the space of a few hours, leaving his whole estate, real and personal, to his legal and sole heir, Randolph Hayford.

And how did Randolph bear this sudden reverse of fortune in his favour? This verification, as it truly seemed, of the doctor's prophecy, that "Providence would open up a way for them."
In the first place, he laid the axe to the root of the Hayford tree, renouncing at once and for ever the name, (of which he had so religiously performed the duties,) and resuming with pride and joy his honoured patronymic. He then, by a formal deed of quit claim, relinquished all right and title to the estate, real and personal, and goods and chattels of Silas Hayford, Esquire, in favour of Martha Hunt, said Silas's sister.

Thus emancipated, and absolved from all further duties and obligations to the name of Hayford, with a character improved and almost perfected by the exact performance of self-denying and painful duties, he began his professional career, depending solely on his own talents and efforts; thank heaven, a sure dependence in our favoured country.

My sweet friend, Fanny, who seemed to be the pet of destiny, as well as of father, sisters, and friends, was thus indulged in bearing the name of Gordon, to which she so fondly adhered. She was soon transferred to Randolph's new place of residence, and without breaking her old father's heart by a separation. He having rashly preached an ultra federal sermon on a fast day, that widened the breach between himself and the majority of his parish, so far, that it was impossible to close it without emulating the deed of Curius. To this the good doctor had no mind, and just then most fortunately, (we beg his pardon, his own word is best,) "providentially" receiving a call to a vacant pulpit in the place of Randolph's residence, he once more transferred his home; spent his last days near his favourite child, and at last, in the language of scripture, "fell asleep" on her bosom.

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English Department at Salem State College - ©2002