She
is thoughtful;--not breaking out, like the hoiden, flax-haired Nelly,
into bursts of joy and singing,--but stealing upon your heart with a
gentle and quiet tenderness that diffuses itself throughout the
household like a soft zephyr of summer.
There are friends too yet left, who come in upon your evening hours, and
light up the loitering time with dreamy story of the years that are
gone. How eagerly you listen to some gossiping veteran friend, who with
his deft words calls up the thread of some by-gone years of life; and
with what a careless, yet grateful recognition you lapse, as it were,
into the current of the past, and live over again by your hospitable
blaze the stir, the joy, and the pride of your lost manhood.
The children of friends too have grown upon your march, and come to
welcome you with that reverent deference which always touches the heart
of age. That wild boy Will,--the son of a dear friend,--who but a little
while ago was worrying you with his boyish pranks, has now shot up into
tall and graceful youth, and evening after evening finds him making
part of your little household group.
----Does the fond old man think that _he_ is all the attraction!
It may be that in your dreamy speculations about the future of your
children, (for still you dream,) you think that Will may possibly become
the husband of the sedate and kindly Madge.
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