ng in such feeling as
ripens manhood. Nothing lays the brown of autumn upon the green of
summer so quick as storms.

There have been changes too in the home scenes; these graft age upon a
man. Nelly--your sweet Nelly of childhood, your affectionate sister of
youth--has grown out of the old brotherly companionship into the new
dignity of a household.

The fire flames and flashes upon the accustomed hearth. The father's
chair is there in the wonted corner; he himself--we must call him the
old man now, though his head shows few white honors--wears a calmness
and a trust that light the failing eye. Nelly is not away; Nelly is a
wife; and the husband yonder, as you may have dreamed,--your old friend
Frank.

Her eye is joyous; her kindness to you is unabated; her care for you is
quicker and wiser. But yet the old unity of the household seems broken;
nor can all her winning attentions bring back the feeling which lived in
Spring under the garret-roof.

The isolation, the unity, the integrity of manhood make a strong prop
for the mind, but a weak one for the heart. Dignity can but poorly fill
up that chasm of the soul which the home affections once occupied.
Life's duties and honors press hard upon the bosom that once throbbed at
a mother's tones, and that bounded in a mother's smiles.

In such home, the strength you boast of seems a weakness; manhood leans
into childish memories, and melts--as Autumn frosts yield to a soft
south-wind coming from a Tropic spring. You feel in a desert, where you
once felt at home,--in a bounded landscape, that was once the world!

The tall sycamores have dwindled to paltry trees; the hills that were so
large, and lay at such grand distance to the eye of childhood, are now
near by, and have fallen away to mere rolling waves of upland. The
garden-fence, that was so gigantic, is now only a simple paling; its
gate that was such a cumbrous affair--reminding you of Gaza--you might
easily lift from its hinges. The lofty dove-cote, which seemed to rise
like a monument of art before your boyish vision, is now only a flimsy
box upon a tall spar of hemlock.

The garret even, with its lofty beams, its dark stains, and its obscure
corners, where the white hats and coats hung ghost-like, is but a low
loft darkened by age,--hung over with cobwebs, dimly lighted with foul
windows,--its romping Charlie--its glee--its swing--its joy--its
mystery--all gone forever.

The old gallipots and retorts are not