and
little boys' playthings from top to bottom,--in all these summer or
winter nests he was always at home and always welcome.

This long articulated sigh of reminiscences,--this calenture which
shows me the maple-shadowed plains of Berkshire and the
mountain-circled green of Grafton beneath the salt waves that come
feeling their way along the wall at my feet, restless and
soft-touching as blind men's busy fingers,--is for that friend of mine
who looks into the waters of the Patapsco and sees beneath them the
same visions that paint themselves for me in the green depths of the
Charles.

----Did I talk all this off to the schoolmistress?--Why, no,--of course
not. I have been talking with you, the reader, for the last ten
minutes. You don't think I should expect any woman to listen to such a
sentence as that long one, without giving her a chance to put in a
word?

----What did I say to the schoolmistress?--Permit me one moment. I don't
doubt your delicacy and good-breeding; but in this particular case, as
I was allowed the privilege of walking alone with a very interesting
young woman, you must allow me to remark, in the classic version of a
familiar phrase, used by our Master Benjamin Franklin, it is _nullum
tui negotii_.

When the schoolmistress and I reached the school-room door, the damask
roses I spoke of were so much heightened in color by exercise that I
felt sure it would be useful to her to take a stroll like this every
morning, and made up my mind I would ask her to let me join her again.

EXTRACT FROM MY PRIVATE JOURNAL.

(_To be burned unread._)

I am afraid I have been a fool; for I have told as much of myself to
this young person as if she were of that ripe and discreet age which
invites confidence and expansive utterance. I have been low-spirited
and listless, lately,--it is coffee, I think,--(I observe that which
is bought _ready-ground_ never affects the head,)--and I notice
that I tell my secrets too easily when I am downhearted.

There are inscriptions on our hearts, which, like that on Dighton
Rock, are never to be seen except at dead-low tide.

There is a woman's footstep on the sand at the side of my deepest
ocean-buried inscription!

----Oh, no, no, no! a thousand times, no!--Yet what is this which has
been shaping itself in my soul?--Is it a thought?--is it a dream?--is
it a _passion_?--Then I know what comes next.

----The Asylum stands on a bright and breezy hill; those glazed
c