came so thick and so fast pouring on, he looked as long as he darst to.  Yet he can tell a good, big story yet, and when somebody was talking of turtles of good size, jumped up suddenly, “Did you ever see a terrapin, Sir?” and then walked round the long dining-table to tell how big he was and how high he stood on his feet.  “When I was in the West Indies, Sir——­Wish I could creep into a good English hay-mow and pay somebody to feed me!”

Do you remember, Estelle, the story we read together once, out of the “Casket” or “Gem,” one of those old annuals, where a certain princess was sent to a desolate island, whose maids of honor were all old crones, once distinguished by their wonderful beauty?  Her task was to discover each especial grace, long since buried by the rubbish which time and folly had heaped upon it; in each old, yellow, wrinkled hag to find the charm which had once adorned her:  as she found the grace, it was transferred to her own youthful person.  Slowly and patiently she unwound those wrapped-up mummies, and disclosed the gems hidden in those burial-clothes; and returned to her father’s court enriched with all those long-buried graces, now revived to their former youthful beauty, and with the added charm which wisdom and patience give.

My task is not so difficult,—­as I seek virtues, not perishable stuffs.  We will learn the history of these thickly crossing wrinkles, that, checkering, map out the face like the streets of a busy city.  We will read the story “that youth and observation copied there.”  Many sit in my chair with weather-beaten looks, but time and want and necessity have ploughed still deeper furrows.

It is not in vain, this brave encounter with the elements,—­this battle to keep the wolf Want outside the door,—­the patient, laborious building up of the small house, made almost a comfortable home by many years of toil,—­the sufficient meal snatched from Nature by the line or the gun, or wrung from her by hard labor of the hands.  Is the face too thin and hard, the lips compressed?  Would you turn away from so much patient endurance of a hard lot?  Turn again, and read the story the clear eye tells; listen to the words of a deep religious experience which the thin, cracked voice relates:  how in visions of the night the Comforter has come to them, and henceforth the way of duty is clear, and the burden of life is lightened.  Will you go with me, dear, into those homely houses, sit with me by the firesides, and hear the simple story of New England’s farmers and farmers’ wives?  We cannot call those poor who are so rich in all the manly virtues, and in the deep experiences of a faithful life.