e old Bible holds its
wonted place, which was the monitor of your boyhood; and now, more than
ever, it prompts those reverent reaches of the spirit, which go beyond
even the track of dreams.

That cherished Madge, the partner of your life and joy, still lingers,
though her step is feeble, and her eyes are dimmed;--not as once
attracting you by any outward show of beauty; your heart, glowing
through the memory of a life of joy, needs no such stimulant to the
affections. Your hearts are knit together by a habit of growth, and a
unanimity of desire. There is less to remind of the vanities of earth,
and more to quicken the hopes of a time when body yields to spirit.

Your own poor, battered hulk wants no jaunty-trimmed craft for consort;
but twin of heart and soul, as you are twin of years, you float
tranquilly toward that haven which lies before us all.

Your children, now almost verging on maturity, bless your hearth and
home. Not one is gone. Frank indeed--that wild fellow of a youth, who
has wrought your heart into perplexing anxieties again and again, as you
have seen the wayward dashes of his young blood--is often away. But his
heart yet centres where yours centres; and his absence is only a nearer
and bolder strife with that fierce world whose circumstances every man
of force and energy is born to conquer.

His return from time to time with that proud figure of opening
manliness, and that full flush of health, speaks to your affections as
you could never have believed it would. It is not for a man, who is the
father of a man, to show any weakness of the heart, or any
over-sensitiveness, in those ties which bind him to his kin. And
yet--yet, as you sit by your fireside, with your clear, gray eye
feasting in its feebleness on that proud figure of a man who calls you
"father,"--and as you see his fond and loving attentions to that one who
has been your partner in all anxieties and joys, there _is_ a throbbing
within your bosom that makes you almost wish him young again,--that you
might embrace him now, as when he warbled in your rejoicing ear those
first words of love!--Ah, how little does a son know the secret and
craving tenderness of a parent,--how little conception has he of those
silent bursts of fondness and of joy which attend his coming, and which
crown his parting!

There is young Madge too,--dark-eyed, tall, with a pensive shadow
resting on her face,--the very image of refinement and of delicacy. She
is