and that, wherever it may be, is too sad a
sight to look upon.

But what a wife the old man had, to
make up, as it seemed even to me, for all!
I say to me, for one of those lost children,
a maiden of seventeen, was my betrothed
bride—the gentlest and most gracious creature
eyes ever looked upon; I think if I
could write my thoughts of her, I should
move those to tears who never saw her face,
when they read "Gertrude died." She gave
herself to me: the old man never could have
given her. I say no more.

This is why Tremadyn House has become
to me a home. It pleases Robert Chetwood to
have his friend's son with him, above all,
because he was his daughter's plighted husband,
and my father's friend is trebly dear to me as
Gertrude's father. When the Christmas party
has dispersed, and the great house is quite
emptied of its score of guests, I still remain
with the old couple over the new year. They
call me son, as though I were their son, and I
call them my parents. If Heaven had willed
it so, dear Gertrude and myself could not
have hoped for greater wedded happiness,
more love between us, than is between those
two. "Perhaps," he says, with a smile I
never saw a young man wear, "perhaps it is
that my old eyes are getting dim and
untrustworthy, but Charlotte seems to me
the dearest and most pleasant-looking dame
in all the world." And his wife makes
answer that her sight also is just as little to
be depended on. To each of them has come
the silver hair, and the reverence with it that
alone makes it beautiful; and if their steps
are slower than in youth, it is not because
their hearts are heavier; they are indeed of
those, so rare ones, who make us in love with
life down even to its close. They always
seemed to me as having climbed the hill
together their whole lives long, and never was
I more astonished than upon this new year's
eve, when, Mrs. Chetwood being with us
two in after-dinner talk, as custom was when
all her guests were gone, her husband told
this history. He had always talked quite
openly to me,

           A pair of friends, though I was young,
           And Robert, seventy-two;

and then, at the end of another year of
love and confidence, I could not resist
inquiring of them how long they two had
been one.

"Well, on my word, George," said the dear
old lady, "you should be more discreet than
to ask such questions."

But her husband answered readily:

"This thirty years. I've been a married
man myself this half-a-century."

"Why, you don't mean to say——" said I.

"Yes, I do," he interrupted. "Of course
I do. Charlotte has been my wife too long,
I hope, to be jealous now of either Kate
or Mary; but I loved them each in turn
almost as dearly as I love her. Charlotte,"
he added, turning towards her as she sat
in the great arm-chair, "you don't mind
George being told about my other two wives,
do you?"

"I don't mind your talking of Mary
much," she answered, "but get over that
young Kate's story as quickly as you can,
please."

And I really thought I detected a blush
come over her dear old face while she was
speaking.

"It is rather less than half a century ago,"
he began, "since I first set foot in this
beautiful Devon county, I came down on a short
holiday from London, in the summer time, to
fish, and I brought with me, besides my rod
and basket, a portmanteau full of clothes and
about twenty-five pounds in gold, which was
the whole amount of my savings. I was
junior clerk in a house at that day, with one
hundred and twenty pounds a-year, and with
as much chance of becoming a partner as
you, my dear briefless Charles, have of sitting
on the woolsack. From the top of Tremadyn
House I could point you out the farm-house
where I lodged, and will some day take you
to see it,—a mighty homestead, with a huge
portico of stone and flights of stone steps
leading to the upper chambers from without.
On one side was the farm-yard, filled
with swine and poultry, with open stalls for
cattle, and enormous barns, not so well kept
or neat, perhaps, as the present day requires,
but a perfect picture of plenty; on the other
stood the cider-presses, and beyond, the
apple orchards, white with promise, red with
fruit, made the air faint with fragrance; half
orchard was the garden, too, in fruit, through
which, beneath a rustic bridge, my trout
stream wandered. Charlotte, you know the
place—have I not painted it?"

"You have, Robert," she said. The tears
were in her eyes, ready to fall, I saw.

"There, then, I met Katie. The good
man of the house was childless, and she, his
cousin, was well cared for as his child. It
was no wonder, George: the dark oak
parlour seemed to need no light when she
shone in it. Like a sunbeam gliding over
common places, whatever household matters
busied her she graced. Some sweet art
seemed to lie in her, superior to mere
neatness, as high-heartedness excelleth pride.
I put on salmon flies to catch trout.
I often fished without any hook at all. I
strove to image her fair face and form in the
clear waters, by the side of that hapless
similitude of myself—the reflex of a forlorn
youth in his first love. I did my best at
hay-making to please her. I took eternal lessons
in the art of making Devon cheese. I got at
last so far as to kiss her hand. I drew a
little, and she sat to me for her portrait. We
sallied out a mushrooming and getting wild
flowers, and on our way sang pleasant songs
together, and interchanged our little stores