gentleman with a queer sort of antique ring from his own finger,
that he'll be de'ed if he doesn't think he looks younger than he did ten
years ago.

But the great time is after dinner, when the dessert and wine are on the
table, which is pushed back to make plenty of room, and they are all
gathered in a large circle round the fire, for it is then--the glasses
being filled, and everybody ready to drink the toast--that two
great-grandchildren rush out at a given signal, and presently return,
dragging in old Jane Adams leaning upon her crutched stick, and trembling
with age and pleasure. Who so popular as poor old Jane, nurse and
story-teller in ordinary to two generations; and who so happy as she,
striving to bend her stiff limbs into a curtsey, while tears of pleasure
steal down her withered cheeks!

The old couple sit side by side, and the old time seems like yesterday
indeed. Looking back upon the path they have travelled, its dust and
ashes disappear; the flowers that withered long ago, show brightly again
upon its borders, and they grow young once more in the youth of those
about them.

CONCLUSION

We have taken for the subjects of the foregoing moral essays, twelve
samples of married couples, carefully selected from a large stock on
hand, open to the inspection of all comers. These samples are intended
for the benefit of the rising generation of both sexes, and, for their
more easy and pleasant information, have been separately ticketed and
labelled in the manner they have seen.

We have purposely excluded from consideration the couple in which the
lady reigns paramount and supreme, holding such cases to be of a very
unnatural kind, and like hideous births and other monstrous deformities,
only to be discreetly and sparingly exhibited.

And here our self-imposed task would have ended, but that to those young
ladies and gentlemen who are yet revolving singly round the church,
awaiting the advent of that time when the mysterious laws of attraction
shall draw them towards it in couples, we are desirous of addressing a
few last words.

Before marriage and afterwards, let them learn to centre all their hopes
of real and lasting happiness in their own fireside; let them cherish the
faith that in home, and all the English virtues which the love of home
engenders, lies the only true source of domestic felicity; let them
believe that round the household gods, contentment and tranquillity
cluster in their g