nt for a month,--
But in exhilarations coming from
Communicated joy and health and life,--
The happiness that's found in making happy."

"All selfishness!" cried Linda; "selfishness!
I seek my happiness, and others theirs;
Only my tastes are different; more plebeian,
Haply, they'd say; but, husband mine, reflect!
You, too, I fear, are lacking in refinement:
Would this have been, had you not acquiesced
In all these vulgar freaks, and found content,
Like me, in giving pleasure to the needy?
And tell me--passing to another point--
Where would have been the monarch of this joy,
That little child,--that antepast of bliss
Such as the angels taste,--had I recoiled
From daring as I did, even when I knew
He I most wished to win would think me bold?"

"Ah! little wife," cried Charles, "I've half a mind
To tell you what I've never told you yet.
Yes, I _will_ tell you all, although it may
End the complacent thought that Linda did it--
Did it by simply daring to propose!
Know, then, a constant track of you I kept,
Even while I seemed to shun you. I could kneel
Before your recollection in my heart,
When you regarded me as shy and cold.
And, while by poverty held reticent,
I saw, supreme among my hopes, but Linda!
Before we left the sea-side I had learnt,
Through gossip of my worthy landlady,
Where you would go, returning to New York.
I found your house; I passed it more than once
When, like a beacon, shone your study-lamp.
The very night before you called upon me
To ask, would I take Rachel as my pupil,
(How kind in you to patronize my school!)
I sought an anodyne for my despair
In watching for your shadow on the curtain.

"Discovery of that unexpected debt,
Owed by my father, killed the last faint hope
Which I had cherished; and our interview--
Your daring offer of this little hand--
But made me emulous to equal you
In self-renouncing generosity;
And so, I frankly told you what I told:
That love and marriage were not in my lot.

"Ten days elapsed, and then from utter gloom
I sprang to cheerful light. My father's partner,
The man named Judd, who robbed us all one day,
Had a compunctious interval, and sent
A hundred thousand dollars back to us--
Why do you smile?"

"Go on. 'Tis worth a smile."

"That very day I cleared myself from debt;
That very day I sued for Linda's hand;
That very