Proud, too, you little soft-voiced woman!  Well, I can’t say I like you any the worse for it.  How long will schoolkeeping take to kill you?  Is it possible the poor thing works with her needle, too?  I don’t like those marks on the side of her forefinger.

Tableau.  Chamouni.  Mont Blanc in full view.  Figures in the foreground; two of them standing apart; one of them a gentleman of——­oh,—­ah,—­yes! the other a lady in a white cashmere, leaning on his shoulder.—­The ingenuous reader will understand that this was an internal, private, personal, subjective diorama, seen for one instant on the background of my own consciousness, and abolished into black non-entity by the first question which recalled me to actual life, as suddenly as if one of those iron shop-blinds (which I always pass at dusk with a shiver, expecting to stumble over some poor but honest shop-boy’s head, just taken off by its sudden and unexpected descent, and left outside upon the sidewalk) had come down “by the run.”

——­Should you like to hear what moderate wishes life brings one to at last?  I used to be very ambitious,—­wasteful, extravagant, and luxurious in all my fancies.  Head too much in the “Arabian Nights.”  Must have the lamp,—­couldn’t do without the ring.  Exercise every morning on the brazen horse.  Plump down into castles as full of little milk-white princesses as a nest is of young sparrows.  All love me dearly at once.—­Charming idea of life, but too high-colored for the reality.  I have outgrown all this; my tastes have become exceedingly primitive,—­almost, perhaps, ascetic.  We carry happiness into our condition, but must not hope to find it there.  I think you will be willing to hear some lines which embody the subdued and limited desires of my maturity.

CONTENTMENT.

  “Man wants but little here below.”

  Little I ask; my wants are few;
    I only wish a hut of stone,
  (A very plain brown stone will do,)
    That I may call my own:—­
  And close at hand is such a one,
  In yonder street that fronts the sun.

  Plain food is quite enough for me;
    Three courses are as good as ten;—­
  If Nature can subsist on three,
        Thank Heaven for three.  Amen! 
  I always thought cold victual nice;—­
  My choice would be vanilla-ice.

  I care not much for gold or land;—­
    Give me a mortgage here and there,—­
  Some good bank-stock,—­some note of hand,
        Or trifling railroad share;—­
  I only ask that Fortune send
  A little more than I shall spend.

  Honors are silly toys, I know,
    And titles are but empty names;—­
  I would, perhaps, be Plenipo,—­
        But only near St. James;—­
  I’m very sure I should not care
  To fill our Gubernator’s chair.

  Jewels are baubles; ’tis a sin
    To care for such unfruitful things;—­
  One good-sized diamond in a pin,—­
        Some, not so large, in rings,—­
  A ruby, and a pearl, or so,
  Will do for me;—­I laugh at show.