ovement of those
dear hands stretching out towards me.

That is not much of a story, you say. It is the story of my life.
That is all. It does not pretend to be anything else. Old Judith says
my luck turned on that summer's night when I was struggling in the
water to save all that was worth living for. A month later there was a
stone bridge above the grotto, and Margaret and I stood on it and
looked up at the moonlit Castle, as we had done once before, and as we
have done many times since. For all those things happened ten years
ago last summer, and this is the tenth Christmas Eve we have spent
together by the roaring logs in the old hall, talking of old times; and
every year there are more old times to talk of. There are curly-headed
boys, too, with red-gold hair and dark-brown eyes like their mother's,
and a little Margaret, with solemn black eyes like mine. Why could not
she look like her mother, too, as well as the rest of them?

The world is very bright at this glorious Christmas time, and perhaps
there is little use in calling up the sadness of long ago, unless it be
to make the jolly fire-light seem more cheerful, the good wife's face
look gladder, and to give the children's laughter a merrier ring, by
contrast with all that is gone. Perhaps, too, some sad faced,
listless, melancholy youth, who feels that the world is very hollow,
and that life is like a perpetual funeral service, just as I used to
feel myself, may take courage from my example, and having found the
woman of his heart, ask her to marry him after half an hour's
acquaintance. But, on the whole, I would not advise any man to marry,
for the simple reason that no man will ever find a wife like mine, and
being obliged to go farther, he will necessarily fare worse. My wife
has done miracles, but I will not assert that any other woman is able
to follow her example.

Margaret always said that the old place was beautiful, and that I ought
to be proud of it. I dare say she is right. She has even more
imagination than I. But I have a good answer and a plain one, which is
this,--that all the beauty of the Castle comes from her. She has
breathed upon it all, as the children blow upon the cold glass
window-panes in winter; and as their warm breath crystallizes into
landscapes from fairyland, full of exquisite shapes and traceries upon
the blank surface, so her spirit has transformed every gray stone of
the old towers, every ancient tree and he