it must be the thirty-seventh Psalm.  If you live to my age, Walter, you have yet a long journey before you, and when the troubles of life disturb your mind—­as doubtless they often will—­when trials beset you and the way looks dark, remember that old Grandma Adams told you to turn to this Psalm; read it carefully, and you will be sure to find something which will cheer and support you.”  I looked with a feeling of deep veneration upon my aged relative, indeed I could not have helped it, as she sat in her arm-chair, with her mild and pleasant countenance, her hair of silvery whiteness smoothly parted beneath the widow’s cap, and as I listened to the words of pious hope and trust which fell from her lips, I felt that I had never before sufficiently valued her counsels and advice, and I resolved that for the future I would endeavour to be doubly attentive and respectful to this aged and feeble relative, who was evidently drawing near the close of her life-journey.

CHAPTER XV.

Time, with his noiseless step, glided on, till but a few weeks remained before the school would break up for the midsummer vacation.  Happy as I was at Uncle Nathan’s, I looked eagerly forward to the holidays, for I was then to pay a visit of several weeks to my home at Elmwood, having been absent nearly a year, and, as this time drew nigh, every day seemed like a week till I could set out on the journey.  Added to the joy of again meeting my mother and sister, I would also meet Charley Gray, who was also to spend his vacation at home.  We had kept up a regular correspondence during the past year.  I could always judge of Charley’s mood by the tone of his letters.  Sometimes he would write a long and interesting letter, in such a glowing, playful style, that I would read it over half-a-dozen times at the least, and perhaps his very next letter would be just the reverse, short, cold and desponding.  Any one who knew Charley as I did could easily tell the state of mind he was in when he wrote, but so well did I know the unhappy moods to which he was subject, that a desponding letter now and then gave me no surprise.  In fact, had the style of his letters been uniformly gay and lively, I should have been more surprised, so well did I understand his variable temper.  But we both looked forward to our anticipated meeting with all the eagerness and impatience of youthful expectation.  For, as I said near the opening of my story, I loved Charley as a brother, and so agreeable and pleasant was his disposition when he was pleased, you quite forgot for the time being the unhappy tempers to which he was subject.