into a means of
glorification!" thought the professor, recurring to the days of his
pastorship.

As may be inferred, the old gentleman was in the habit of getting up
early; a praiseworthy practice, but one so universal with elderly people
as to suggest a doubt of its being entirely a voluntary virtue. Be that
as it may, the professor was up, and proceeded to set his blood in
motion over a wash-bowl. His toilet was not so intricate and serious a
matter as it might have been forty years or so previous, but was
nevertheless a duty most scrupulously and conscientiously performed,
from June to December, and round again. The last thing attended to
before putting on his coat was always carefully to brush and dispose his
hair. Until within two or three years, he had been able to keep up
appearances by coaxing a gray rift across the top of the bald place; but
it had grown month by month thinner and grayer, and more difficult to
keep in position, until at last he had bravely told himself it was a
vanity and a delusion, and had consigned it to obscurity and oblivion
among the rusty side-locks which still sturdily surrounded the naked and
inaccessible summit. Since that time he had occasionally allowed his
thoughts to revert to it regretfully, though not bitterly nor
rebelliously.

But, on this particular morning, he stood, brush in hand, before his
looking-glass with an expression upon his elderly features at once
undecided, wistful, and shame-faced; detached, after a short search, a
few frosty spears from the assortment at the left side of his head;
scrutinized them anxiously for a moment, and then, by the aid of a
little water, and cautious brushing and pulling, succeeded in spatting
them down into their long-abandoned place.

"I'm an old fool, that's certain!" muttered he, as, after a final
surreptitious sort of glance at the unaccustomed embellishment, he
turned away. "But then I don't go out calling every day!"

He slipped on his coat, opened his door, and descended the stairs with
his usual solid deliberation. As he emerged upon the balcony, the
sunshine had just lighted up the tree-tops in the garden, but a little
nest of white mist still rested upon the fountain, whose indefatigably
small gabble could be heard proceeding mysteriously from the centre
thereof. A few large, thin mosquitoes, cold and portentously hungry from
their all-night's fast, came swooping at the professor with shrieks of
dismal tenuity, intending t