begin to Mr.
Clyde me for a long time to come, and least, I mean most of all, you,
Gabriella. We were always such exceedingly good friends, you know. But
don't be in such a hurry, I have a thousand questions to ask, a thousand
things to tell."

"I should love to hear them all, Richard, but I cannot keep my mother
waiting."

Before I could get hold of the handle of the pail, he had seized it and
was swinging it along with as much ease as if he had a bunch of roses in
his hand. We ascended the little hill together, he talking all the time,
in a spirited, joyous manner, laughing at his awkwardness as he stumbled
against a rolling stone, wishing he was a school-boy again in the old
academy, whose golden vane was once an object of such awe and admonition
in his eyes.

"By the way, Gabriella," he asked, changing from subject to subject with
marvellous rapidity, "do you ever write poetry now?"

"I have given that up, as one of the follies of my childhood, one of the
dreams of my youth."

"Really, you must be a very venerable person,--you talk of the youthful
follies you have discarded, the dreams from which you have awakened, as
if you were a real centenarian. I wonder if there are not some incipient
wrinkles on your face."

He looked at me earnestly, saucily; and I involuntarily put up my hands,
as if to hide the traces of care his imagination was drawing.

"I really do feel old sometimes," said I, smiling at the mock scrutiny
of his gaze, "and it is well I do. You know I am going to be a teacher,
and youth will be my greatest objection."

"No, no, I do not want you to be a teacher. You were not born for one.
You will not be happy as one,--you are too impulsive, too sensitive, too
poetic in your temperament. You are the last person in the world who
ought to think of such a vocation."

"Would you advise me, then, to be a hewer of wood and a drawer of water,
in preference?"

"I would advise you to continue your studies, to read, write poetry,
ramble about the woods and commune with nature, as you so love to do,
and not think of assuming the duties of a woman, while you are yet
nothing but a child. Oh! it is the most melancholy thing in the world to
me, to see a person trying to get beyond their years. You must not do
it, Gabriella. I wish I could make you stop _thinking_ for one year. I
do not like to see a cheek as young as yours pale with overmuch thought.
Do you know you are getting very like your mother?"

"M