s one of the most
deserving heroes of modern times. Your mind is in a continued ferment;
you glide through your toil--dashing out sparkles of passion--like a
ship in the sea. No difficulty daunts you: there is a kind of buoyancy
in your soul that rocks over danger or doubt, as sea-waves heave calmly
and smoothly over sunken rocks.

You grow unusually amiable and kind; you are earnest in your search of
friends; you shake hands with your office-boy as if he were your second
cousin. You joke cheerfully with the stout washerwoman, and give her a
shilling over-change, and insist upon her keeping it, and grow quite
merry at the recollection of it. You tap your hackman on the shoulder
very familiarly, and tell him he is a capital fellow; and don't allow
him to whip his horses, except when driving to the post-office. You even
ask him to take a glass of beer with you upon some chilly evening. You
drink to the health of his wife. He says he has no wife; whereupon you
think him a very miserable man, and give him a dollar by way of
consolation.

You think all the editorials in the morning papers are remarkably well
written,--whether upon your side, or upon the other. You think the
stock-market has a very cheerful look, even with Erie--of which you are
a large holder--down to seventy-five. You wonder why you never admired
Mrs. Hemans before, or Stoddard, or any of the rest.

You give a pleasant twirl to your fingers as you saunter along the
street, and say,--but not so loud as to be overheard,--"She is mine; she
is mine!"

You wonder if Frank ever loved Nelly one half as well as you love Madge.
You feel quite sure he never did. You can hardly conceive how it is that
Madge has not been seized before now by scores of enamored men, and
borne off, like the Sabine women in Roman history. You chuckle over your
future, like a boy who has found a guinea in groping for sixpences. You
read over the marriage service,--thinking of the time when you will take
_her_ hand, and slip the ring upon _her_ finger,--and repeat, after the
clergyman, "for richer--for poorer; for better--for worse!" A great deal
of "worse" there will be about it, you think!

Through all, your heart cleaves to that sweet image of the beloved
Madge, as light cleaves to day. The weeks leap with a bound; and the
months only grow long when you approach that day which is to make her
yours. There are no flowers rare enough to make bouquets for her;
diamonds are too dim for