could penetrate to an
immeasurable distance. The act of breathing was a luxury. You drew in
draught after draught of the rich air, feeling, with every inhalation,
that a new vitality was absorbed through the lungs, giving to the heart
a nobler beat, and to the brain a fresh activity. With what a different
feeling did I take up my round of duties for the day! Yesterday I went
creeping forth like a reluctant school boy; to-day, with an uplifted
countenance and a willing step.

Having a few near calls to make, I did not order my horse, as both
health and inclination were better served by walking. Soon after
breakfast I started out, and was going in the direction of Judge
Bigelow's office, when, hearing a step behind me that had in it
a familiar sound, I turned to find myself face to face with Henry
Wallingford! He could hardly have failed to see the look of surprise in
my face.

"Good morning, Henry," I said, giving him my hand, and trying to
speak with that cheerful interest in the young man which I had always
endeavored to show.

He smiled in his usual quiet way as he took my hand and said in return,

"Good-morning, Doctor."

"You were not out, I believe, yesterday," I remarked, as we moved on
together.

"I didn't feel very well," he answered, in a voice pitched to a lower
key than usual; "and, the day being a stormy one, I shut myself up at
home."

"Ah," said I, in a cheerful way, "you lawyers have the advantage of us
knights of the pill box and lancet. Rain or shine, sick or well, we must
travel round our parish."

"All have their share of the good as well as the evil things of life,"
he replied, a little soberly. "Doctors and lawyers included."

I did not observe any marked change in the young man, except that he
was paler, and had a different look out of his eyes from any that I had
hitherto noticed; a more matured look, which not only indicated deeper
feeling, but gave signs of will and endurance. I carried that new
expression away with me as we parted at the door of his office, and
studied it as a new revelation of the man. It was very certain that
profounder depths had been opened in his nature--opened to his own
consciousness--than had ever seen the light before. That he was more
a man than he had ever been, and more worthy to be mated with a true
woman. Up to this time I had thought of him more as a boy than as a man,
for the years had glided by so quietly that bore him onward with the
rest, that h