d loving
smile upon her lips and the tender mother-love in the depths of her
beautiful blue eyes--lips that had so oven kissed away his childish
tears, and had taught him to say at evening, "Our Father" and "Now I lay
me down to sleep," eyes that had never looked upon him without something
of the heavenly light of which they were now so full. There before him,
bright and clear as ever, were the scenes of his boyhood--the
school-forms defaced with many a rude cutting of names and dates, the
master knitting his shaggy brows and tapping meaningly with his ruler
upon the awful desk while some white haired urchin floundered through an
ill-learned task and his classmates tittered at his blunders. Dear old
classmates! How their faces shone and gladdened as they chased the
bounding football! How merrily they flushed and glowed when the clear
frosty air of the Northern winter quivered with the ring of their skates
upon the hard ice! How soberly side by side they solved problems and
looked up _sesquipedalia verba_ in big lexicons! And how happily the
late evening hours wore away as they read _Ivanhoe_ and the _Leather
Stocking Tales_ by the fireside with shellbarks and pippins!

Then the college days flew by with all their romance and delight. Again
there were bells ringing to morning prayers, recitations and lectures,
examinations and prizes, speeches and medals, and the glorious
friendships, pure, earnest, almost holy. Would there were more such
friendships in the outer, wider world! Commencement with its "pomp and
circumstance," its tedious ceremony and scholarly display, its friends
from home--mothers, sisters, sweethearts, all bright eyes and fond
hearts, its music and flowers, its caps, gowns, dress-coats and
"spreads," and, last and worst of all, its sorrowful "good-byes," some
of them, alas! for ever! Once more he trembled as he rose to make his
commencement speech, but slowly, as he went on, his voice grew steady
and his manner calmer, for, lad as he was, and tyro at "orations," he
was in earnest. "May my light hand forget its cunning, O my brother! may
my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, O ye oppressed! if ever there
comes to me an opportunity to help you win your way to freedom and I
fail you!" He, the aristocrat of his class, had chosen to speak "Against
Caste," and though he spoke with the enthusiasm of an untried man, it
was with devoted honesty of purpose, of which his earnestness was
witness, and of which hi