And my birthdays come so swiftly
    That I meet them grudgingly: 
  Would it be so were I longing
    For the life that is to be?

  Nay:  the soul, though ever reaching
    For that which is out of sight,
  Yet soars with reluctant motion,
    Since there is no backward flight.

CHARLOTTE F. BATES.

A NIGHT AT COCKHOOLET CASTLE.

I.

Cockhoolet was the name of the place:  it was a farm of which the Ormistons were and had been tenants for several generations.  A father, mother and five olive-branches made up the family.  A healthy, happy, united, thriving family they were, and as such much respected.  There were two sons and three daughters, the eldest of whom was Bessie, the “Rose of Cockhoolet,” as she was called; for that she had all the beauty and sweetness of the rose was generally allowed, although there were people who could not be made to see this—­people who were probably idiopts; not idiots—­although they might have a streak of idiocy in them, too, perhaps—­but idiopts, or persons who were color-blind.  None of the young men of the district were color-blind.

The clergyman of the parish in which Cockhoolet was situated, and at whose church the Ormistons attended, was an old man comparatively, whose sermons were old-fashioned, and not given forth with the fire of youth:  he was not one you would have expected to be very popular, especially with the young; yet various young men from considerable distances were attracted to his church, and, generally speaking, they settled themselves in pews opposite the gallery in front of which sat Mr. Ormiston and his family.  Any person who chanced to be in the vicinity, if of discerning powers, might have been conscious of the electricity in the air.  Dull people neither saw nor felt it.

Bessie Ormiston was not dull, but, being a modest girl, she would rather not have been stared at; and, being a good girl, she thought people might be better employed in church:  still, she was only a girl, and it would not be the truth to say she was mortally offended.  Did the person ever exist who was offended at an honest compliment?  If he ever did, he ought to have been fed on sarcasm for the rest of his days.

Not only was Bessie pretty—­she was also rich.  A grand-uncle had left her five thousand pounds, her brothers and sisters getting only one thousand each.  There is no use in asking reasons for this:  simply, the Rose was born with a silver spoon in her mouth.  Perhaps, indeed, the old man did not know he had so much money, for it was as residuary legatee that Bessie got the five thousand pounds, and it was not thought she would get anything like that:  people remarked, in the language of the district, which was apt occasionally to be strong and graphic rather than elegant,—­people remarked that “old Ormiston had cut up well.”  Five thousand charms added to those Bessie already possessed—­not to mention that her father was a rich man—­made her most miraculously charming:  like Tibby Fowler of the Glen, whose perplexities of this kind have been embalmed in song, she had wealth of wooers, and wealth, it is well known, makes wit waver.