ield receive him
With coolest shades till noon-tide's rage is spent;
His life is neither tost on boisterous seas
Of troublous worlds, nor lost in slothful ease.
Pleased and full blest he lives, when he his God can please.

'His bed of wool yields safe and quiet sleeps,
While by his side his faithful spouse hath place;
His little son into his bosom creeps,
The lively image of his father's face;
Never his humble house or state torment him,
Less he could like, if less his God had sent him;
And when he dies, green turfs with grassy tomb content him.'"

John ceased. He was a good reader--but I had never heard him read like
this before. Ending, one missed it like the breaking of music, or like
the inner voice of one's own heart talking when nobody is by.

"David," I said, after a pause, "what are you thinking about?"

He started, with his old quick blush--"Oh, nothing--No, that's not
quite true. I was thinking that, so far as happiness goes, this
'shepherd's' is my ideal of a happy life--ay, down to the 'grassy
tomb.'"

"Your fancy leaps at once to the grassy tomb; but the shepherd enjoyed
a few intermediate stages of felicity before that."

"I was thinking of those likewise."

"Then you do intend some day to have a 'faithful spouse and a little
son'?"

"I hope so--God willing."

It may seem strange, but this was the first time our conversation had
ever wandered in a similar direction. Though he was twenty and I
twenty-two--to us both--and I thank Heaven that we could both look up
in the face of Heaven and say so!--to us both, the follies and
wickednesses of youth were, if not equally unknown, equally and alike
hateful. Many may doubt, or smile at the fact; but I state it now, in
my old age, with honour and pride, that we two young men that day
trembled on the subject of love as shyly, as reverently, as delicately,
as any two young maidens of innocent sixteen.

After John's serious "God willing," there was a good long silence.
Afterwards, I said--

"Then you propose to marry?"

"Certainly! as soon as I can."

"Have you ever--" and, while speaking, I watched him narrowly, for a
sudden possibility flashed across my mind--"Have you ever seen any one
whom you would like for your wife?"

"No."

I was satisfied. John's single "No" was as conclusive as a score of
asseverations.

We said no more; but after one of tho