twenty years
At least. God grant, her sweet companionship
May be your strength and light when I'm not here,
My matchless little girl, my precious Linda!"

"Ah! how Love magnifies the thing it loves!"
Smiling she said: "when I look in the glass,
I see a comely Miss; nay, perhaps pretty;
That epithet is her superlative,
So far as person is concerned, I fear.
Grant her a cheerful temper; that she gets
From both her parents. She is dutiful,--
No wonder, for she never is opposed!
Strangely coincident her way is yours;
Industrious, but that's her mother's training.
Then if you come to gifts of mind--ah me!
What can she show? We'll not pronounce her dull;
But she's not apt or quick; and all she gets
Is by hard work, by oft-repeated trials,
Trials with intermissions of despair.
The languages she takes to not unkindly;
But mathematics is her scourge, her kill-joy,
Pressing her like a nightmare. Logic, too,
Distresses and confuses her poor brain;
Oh! ask her not for reasons. As for music--
Music she loves. Would that Love might inspire
The genius it reveres so ardently!
Has she no gift for painting? Eye for form
And coloring I truly think she has;
And one thing she can do, and do it well;
She can group flowers and ferns and autumn leaves,
Paint their true tints, and render back to nature
A not unfaithful copy.

"This the extent
Of her achievements! She has labored hard
To mould a bust or statue; but the clay
Lacked the Pygmalion touch beneath her hands.
She'll never be a female Angelo.
She must come down content to mother Earth,
And study out the alphabet which Summer
Weaves on the sod in fields or bordering woods.
Such is your paragon, my simple father!
But now, this ordinary little girl,
So seeming frank, (whisper it low!) is yet
So deep, so crafty, and so full of wiles,
That she has quite persuaded both her parents--
In most things sensible, clear-seeing people--
That she is just a prodigy indeed!
Not one of goodness merely, but of wit,
Capacity, and general cleverness!"

"There, that will do, spoilt darling! What a tongue!"
Percival said, admiring while he chided.
"O the swift time! Thou'rt seventeen to-day;
And yet, except thy parents and thy teachers,
Friends and companions thou hast hardly known.
'Tis fit that I should tell thee why our life
Has been thus socially estr