me."

They remind me that four of my greatest friends at school, ten short
years ago, are long since dead. Like the trees felled by the woodman's
axe, they were struck down by the sickle of the silent Reaper, even as
the golden sheaves that are gathered into the beautiful barns. Other
trees will spring up and shade the naked earth in the woods with their
mantle of green: so, also,

"Others will fill our places
Dressed in the old light blue."

And just as in the woods fresh young saplings are daily springing up, so
also the merry voices of happy, generous boys are ringing, as I write,
in the old, old courts and cloisters by the silvery Thames; their merry
laughter is echoed by the bare grey walls, whereon the names of those
who have long been dust are chiselled in rude handwriting on the
mouldering stone.

Hundreds we knew have gone down. The fatal bullet, the ravaging fever,
the roaring torrent, and the sad sea waves; the slow, sure grip of
consumption, the fall at polo, and the iron hoofs of the favourite
hunter;--all claimed their victims.

Perhaps this is why we love to linger in the woods watching the rays of
golden light reflected upon the warm, red earth, listening to the
heavenly voices of the birds and the hopeful babbling of the brook.
Those purple hills and distant bars of gold in the western sky at the
soft twilight hour are rendered ever so much more beautiful when we
dimly view them through a mist of tears.

And now your thoughts are taken back five short years; you are once more
staying with your old Eton friend and Oxford comrade in his beautiful
home in far-off Wales. All is joy and happiness in that lovely, romantic
home, for in six weeks' time the young squire, the best and most popular
fellow in the world, is to be married to the fair daughter of a
neighbouring house. Is it possible that aught can happen in that short
time to mar the heavenly happiness of those two twin souls? Alas for the
gallant, chivalrous nature I Well might he have cried with his knightly
ancestor of the "Round Table," "Me forethinketh this shall betide, but
God may well foredoe destiny." He had gone down to the lake in the most
beautiful and romantic part of his lovely home, taking with him, as was
his wont, his fishing-rod and his gun. One shot was heard, and one only,
on that ill-fated afternoon, and then all, save for the songs of the
birds and the rippling of the deep waters of the lake, was wrapped in
sil