e mortal
that was called by his name and has passed for the same person for some
scores of years,--is considered absurdly sentimental by kind-hearted
women, because he opens the fly-trap and sets all its captives
free,--out-of-doors, of course, but the dear souls all insisting,
meanwhile, that the flies will, every one of them, be back again in
the house before the day is over. Do you suppose that venerable sinner
expects to be rigorously called to account for the want of feeling he
showed in those early years, when the instinct of destruction, derived
from his forest-roaming ancestors, led him to acts which he now looks
upon with pain and aversion?

"Senex" has seen three generations grow up, the son repeating the
virtues and the failings of the father, the grandson showing the same
characteristics as the father and grandfather. He knows that if such or
such a young fellow had lived to the next stage of life he would very
probably have caught up with his mother's virtues, which, like a graft
of a late fruit on an early apple or pear tree, do not ripen in her
children until late in the season. He has seen the successive ripening
of one quality after another on the boughs of his own life, and he finds
it hard to condemn himself for faults which only needed time to fall
off and be succeeded by better fruitage. I cannot help thinking that the
recording angel not only drops a tear upon many a human failing, which
blots it out forever, but that he hands many an old record-book to the
imp that does his bidding, and orders him to throw that into the fire
instead of the sinner for whom the little wretch had kindled it.

"And pitched him in after it, I hope," said Number Seven, who is in
some points as much of an optimist as any one among us, in spite of the
squint in his brain,--or in virtue of it, if you choose to have it so.

"I like Wordsworth's 'Matthew,'" said Number Five, "as well as any
picture of old age I remember."

"Can you repeat it to us?" asked one of The Teacups.

"I can recall two verses of it," said Number Five, and she recited the
two following ones. Number Five has a very sweet voice. The moment she
speaks all the faces turn toward her. I don't know what its secret is,
but it is a voice that makes friends of everybody.

"'The sighs which Matthew heaved were sighs
Of one tired out with fun and madness;
The tears which came to Matthew's eyes
Were tears of light, the dew of gladness.

"'Yet