a
handsome, strong man, noted for his kindness of heart. Many friends, who
now existed only in pleasant remembrance, then lived, breathed and moved
upon the earth. Then he loved Adelpha, and she loved him, and he half
hoped that this meeting in mature life would reproduce the pleasant
sensations of childhood; but there is a love which is not the love of
the thoughtless and the young--a love which sees not with the eyes and
hears not with the ears, but in which soul is enamoured of soul. The
cave-nursed Plato dreamed of such a love. His followers sought to
imitate it; but it is a love that is not for the multitude to echo. It
is a love which only high and noble natures can conceive, and it has
nothing in common with the sympathies and ties of coarse affections.
Wrinkles do not revolt it. Homeliness of features do not deter it. It
demands youth only in the freshness of emotions. It requires only the
beauty of thought and spirit.

Such a love steals on when one least suspects and takes possession of
the soul. Such a love cannot be uprooted by admiration or fancy. Charles
Stevens found Adelpha grown so beautiful, so witty and accomplished,
that he was awed in her presence at first; but her freedom of manner
removed all restraint, and in an hour they seemed transported back to
childhood's happy hours.

Next day they wandered as they had done in earlier years by purling
streams and mossy banks, under cool shadows of friendly trees. Every old
playground and hallowed spot was visited once more, and they lived over
those joyous scenes of childhood.

"I sometimes wish that childhood would last forever," said Charles.

"Childhood brings its joys, but its sorrows as well," Adelpha answered,
as she sat on the mossy bank at his side, her bright eyes on his face.
"One would grow weary of never advancing. Don't you remember how, in
your boyhood, you looked forward with pleasure to the time when you
would be a man?"

"I do."

"And how you planned for a glorious future?"

"I remember it all."

"To doom you to perpetual childhood, to constantly have those hopes of
being a man blasted would eventually bring you to endless misery. No,
Charles, childhood, to be happy and joyous, must be brief. The youth
with ambition longs to enter man's estate. He sees life only in its
rosiest hues, and his hopes and anticipations form half his happiness."

"Your words, Adelpha, teach me how foolish and idle was my remark. Let
us change the sub