“Pretty well for three-and-twenty, my boy,” I said.  “I suppose you’ll think you must be married one of these days, if you accept this office.”

Mr. Langdon blushed.—­There had been stories about him, he knew.  His name had been mentioned in connection with that of a very charming young lady.  The current reports were not true.  He had met this young lady, and been much pleased with her, in the country, at the house of her grandfather, the Reverend Doctor Honeywood,—­you remember Miss Letitia Forester, whom I have mentioned repeatedly?  On coming to town, he found his country-acquaintance in a social position which seemed to discourage his continued intimacy.  He had discovered, however, that he was a not unwelcome visitor, and had kept up friendly relations with her.  But there was no truth in the current reports,—­none at all.

Some months had passed, after this visit, when I happened one evening to stroll into a box in one of the principal theatres of the city.  A small party sat on the seats before me:  a middle-aged gentleman and his lady, in front, and directly behind them my young doctor and the same very handsome young lady I had seen him walking with on the side-walk before the swell-fronts and south-exposures.  As Professor Langdon seemed to be very much taken up with his companion, and both of them looked as if they were enjoying themselves, I determined not to make my presence known to my young friend, and to withdraw quietly after feasting my eyes with the sight of them for a few minutes.

“It looks as if something might come of it,” I said to myself.

At that moment the young lady lifted her arm accidentally, in such a way that the light fell upon the clasp of a chain which encircled her wrist.  My eyes filled with tears as I read upon the clasp, in sharp-cut Italic letters, E.V. They were tears at once of sad remembrance and of joyous anticipation; for the ornament on which I looked was the double pledge of a dead sorrow and a living affection.  It was the golden bracelet,—­the parting-gift of Elsie Venner.

* * * * *

BUBBLES.

I.

  I stood on the brink in childhood,
  And watched the bubbles go
  From the rock-fretted sunny ripple
  To the smoother lymph below;

  And over the white creek-bottom,
  Under them every one,
  Went golden stars in the water,
  All luminous with the sun.

  But the bubbles brake on the surface,
  And under, the stars of gold
  Brake, and the hurrying water
  Flowed onward, swift and cold.

II.

  I stood on the brink in manhood,
  And it came to my weary heart,—­
  In my breast so dull and heavy,
  After the years of smart,—­

  That every hollowest bubble
  Which over my life had passed
  Still into its deeper current
  Some sky-sweet gleam had cast;