large amounts in New York city, and had fled to the West, and there changed his name to avoid the arrest and punishment which his father had promised him.  Had the old gentleman been informed of this circumstance, he would at once have identified Van Benton as his son; for it was known to him alone, that young Myndert had repeatedly forged his name (evidences of which had been found in the desk where Marcus Wilkeson had often seen the young man busily writing—­evidences which the forger had accidentally omitted to burn), and that he had been induced to leave the city through fear that his father would give him up to justice at last.  On the memorable night in the milliner’s shop in Greenpoint, the young profligate had seen that his father was terribly in earnest, and had quailed in the presence of that outraged and indignant soul.

The second house not ornamented by a doctor’s sign, on the south side of the block, was the old tenement building of which Mr. Minford had occupied the upper story, five years before.  The tenants had all been changed two or three times; but the “Minford tragedy” was still a current legend among them.  Murders, or strange homicides, are fixtures of houses where they occur.  Nothing obliterates their memory but tearing down the houses, and building anew—­which is the course of treatment that the proprietor was proposing to himself, in consequence of the steady depreciation of rents.  Pet never passed that house, or dared to look at it even from a distance.

Bachelors’ Hall, on the north side of the block, was still occupied by the three original tenants; and they liked it so well, that they had bought it, and owned it on the Tontine plan—­viz., that, upon the death of one of the owners, his share shall go to the survivors.

Five years had improved Marcus Wilkeson’s relish for a good book, an after-dinner pipe, and a chat with a friend.  It was plain to all his friends—­even to those who were happiest in their wedded lives—­that Marcus was a great deal better off single than married.  His was the genial monkish nature, which thrives best in celibacy.

Every afternoon Marcus visited his white-haired neighbor opposite, and never forgot to take along a toy, or some candy, for his grandniece Helen.  He brought these offerings in lieu of baby talk, which he could never master.  This fact pointed him out, beyond all question, as a predestined old bachelor.

The general supervision of the house was intrusted to Mrs. Overtop; and most sensibly did she manage it.  Knowing that a bar of cast iron is more easily bent than the set habits of men of twenty-five and upward, she attempted no changes in the domestic regulations of the establishment.  The three friends found that they had not only all of their old freedom, but a charming female voice to accompany them in their songs, and on the piano or guitar, and a capital fourth hand at whist, and a beautiful reader, and an ever-cheerful companion.  “If I could find such a wife, now!” Marcus and Maltboy would say.  “But you can’t,” Overtop would answer.  “There’s not another like her in this world.”  There was a little Fayette Overtop, jr., two years old, a great pet of the bachelors, and the far-off husband of little Helen, on the other side of the block.