Quizzle.—­You seem to me, governor, to be more sprightly at every interview.

Well, that is so, but I do not know how long it will last; stout people like myself often go the quickest.

There is a constant sympathy expressed by robust people for those of slight physical constitution.  I think the sympathy ought to turn in the opposite direction.  It is the delicate people who escape the most fearful disorders, and in three cases out of four live the longest.  These gigantic structures are almost always reckless of health.  They say, “Nothing hurts me,” and so they stand in draughts, and go out into the night air to cool off, and eat crabs at midnight, and doff their flannels in April, and carelessly get their feet wet.

But the delicate people are shy of peril.  They know that disease has been fishing for them for twenty years, and they keep away from the hook.  No trout can be caught if he sees the shadow of the sportsman on the brook.  These people whom everybody expects to die, live on most tenaciously.

I know of a young lady who evidently married a very wealthy man of eighty-five years on the ground he was very delicate, and with reference to her one-third.  But the aged invalid is so careful of his health, and the young wife so reckless of hers, that it is now uncertain whether she will inherit his store-houses or he inherit her wedding-rings.

Health and longevity depend more upon caution and intelligent management of one’s self than upon original physical outfit.  Paul’s advice to the sheriff is appropriate to people in all occupations:  “Do thyself no harm!”

Besides that, said the governor, I have moved and settled in very comfortable quarters since I was at this table before.  The house I have moved in is not a better house, but somehow I feel more contented.

Most of our households are quieted after the great annual upsetting.  The last carpet is tacked down.  The strings that were scattered along the floor have been rolled up in a ball.  We begin to know the turns in the stairway.  Things are settling down, and we shall soon feel at home in our new residence.  If it is a better house than we had, do not let us be too proud of the door-plate, nor worship too ardently the fine cornice, nor have any idea that superb surroundings are going to make us any happier than we were in the old house.

Set not your affections on luxurious upholstery and spacious drawing-room.  Be grateful and be humble.

If the house is not as large nor in as good neighborhood as the one you formerly occupied, make the best of it.  It is astonishing what a good time you may have in a small room.  Your present neighbors are just as kind as those you left, if you only knew them.  Do not go around your house sticking up your nose at the small pantry, and the ugly mantel-pieces, and the low ceiling.  It is a better place than your divine Master occupied, and to say the least you are no better than He.  If you are a Christian, you are on your way to a King’s mansion, and you are now only stopping a little in the porter’s lodge at the gate.  Go down in the dark lanes of the city and see how much poorer off many of your fellow-citizens are.  If the heart be right, the home will be right.