impulsive youth?"

"Well do I! And the interest I felt in you has never cooled."

"Hope was bright before me. I believed I should make some stir in the
world. All my plans for the future were tinged with the colors of
romance. But the flowers I saw in the distance proved to be only
briers."

"You found life a stern and unromantic fact," said Father Brighthopes,
smiling. "The same disenchantment awaits every imaginative youth. It is
sad--it is often very bitter; but it is a useful lesson."

"The blue hills I climbed grew unusually rugged and rocky to my
undisciplined feet," resumed Mr. Royden, shaking his head. "I came upon
the ledges very suddenly. The haze and sunshine faded and dissolved,
even as I reached the most enchanting point of the ascent."

"It is plain you allude to your marriage."

Mr. Royden was silent. His features writhed with bitter emotions, and
his voice was deep and tremulous, when at length he spoke.

"My wife is the best of women at heart," he said. "I feel that I could
not live without her. But she never understood me, and never could. With
the aspirations dearest to my soul she has had no sympathy."

"It is her misfortune, and not her fault, I am sure," replied Father
Brighthopes.

"I know it is--I know it is! We did not understand each other before
marriage. Our attachment was a romantic one. She had no thought of what
was in me; she saw me only as a lover attractive enough to please her
girlish imagination. She was very beautiful, and I loved her devotedly.
But--" Mr. Royden's voice was shaken--"when I looked to find my other
ideal self glowing beneath her brilliant exterior, I saw a stranger
there. I found that it was not her character I had loved."

"And she, probably, made a similar discovery in you," said the old man,
cheerfully, but feelingly.

"No doubt--no doubt! But I do wrong to speak of this," murmured Mr.
Royden, brushing a tear from his eye. "It is a subject I could never
talk upon to a living soul, and how I have come to let you into my
confidence I am at a loss to know."

"Some good angel prompted you, perhaps," replied Father Brighthopes, "in
order that something may come, through me, to counsel or comfort you."

"I would gladly think so!" exclaimed his companion. "I want consolation
and instruction: and you are so wise an old head!"

He coughed, spoke to the horse, to urge him into a faster pace, and,
having silenced his emotions, resumed the subject of conversati