d. The Grey Goose is sensible of an
atmosphere of repose, and puts up one leg for the night. The grass glows
with a more vivid green, and, in answer to a ringing call from Tony, his
sisters, fluttering over the daisies in pale-hued muslins, come out of
their ever-open door, like pretty pigeons form a dovecote.

And, if the good gossips, eyes do not deceive them, all the Miss
Johnsons, and both the officers, go wandering off into the lanes, where
bryony wreaths still twine about the brambles.

* * * * *

A sorrowful story, and ending badly?

Nay, Jackanapes, for the end is not yet.

A life wasted that might have been useful?

Men who have died for men, in all ages, forgive the thought!

There is a heritage of heroic example and noble obligation, not reckoned
in the Wealth of Nations, but essential to a nation's life; the contempt
of which, in any people, may, not slowly, mean even its commercial fall.
Very sweet are the uses of prosperity, the harvests of peace and
progress, the fostering sunshine of health and happiness, and length of
days in the land.

But there be things--oh, sons of what has deserved the name of Great
Britain, forget it not!--"the good of" which and "the use of" which are
beyond all calculation of worldly goods and earthly uses; things such as
Love, and Honor, and the Soul of Man, which cannot be bought with a
price, and which do not die with death. "And they who would fain live
happily EVER after, should not leave these things out of the lessons of
their lives."

DADDY DARWIN'S DOVECOT.

* * * * *

PREAMBLE.

A summer's afternoon. Early in the summer, and late in the afternoon;
with odors and colors deepening, and shadows lengthening, towards
evening.

Two gaffers gossiping, seated side by side upon a Yorkshire wall. A wall
of sandstone of many colors, glowing redder and yellower as the sun goes
down; well cushioned with moss and lichen, and deep set in rank grass on
this side, where the path runs, and in blue hyacinths on that side,
where the wood is, and where--on the gray and still naked branches of
young oaks--sit divers crows, not less solemn than the gaffers, and also
gossiping.

One gaffer in work-day clothes, not unpicturesque of form and hue. Gray,
home-knit stockings, and coat and knee-breeches of corduroy, which takes
tints from Time and Weather as harmoniously as wooden palings do; so
that field labo