The second year which I spent at Uncle Nathan’s was one which I often since called to mind as the happiest of my life.  The days glided by in the busy routine of school duties, and my evenings were spent in study varied by social enjoyment.  I was never too busy to respond to grandma’s request that I should leave my lessons or play for an hour and read to her.  I had learned to regard this aged relative with much affection; even as a child I believe I was of a reflective cast of mind, and Grandma Adams was the first very old person with whom I had been intimately associated.  And often as I sat by her side and watched the firelight as it shone upon her silvery hair, and lighted up her venerable and serene countenance, would I wonder mentally if I would ever grow as old and feeble and my hair become as white as her’s.  I remember one evening when I was indulging in these thoughts the old lady asked me what I was thinking about that caused me to look so serious?  “I was wondering,” replied I, “if I shall live to see as many years, and if my eyes will become as dim and my air grow white as yours.”  “My dear boy,” she replied, “I suppose I seem to you like one who has travelled a long journey.  At your age, ten or twenty years seemed to me almost an endless period of time, but now that I have seen more than eighty years of life the whole journey seems very short, when taking a backward view of the path over which I have travelled.  It seems but as yesterday since I was a little mischief-loving school girl, when my only anxiety was how I could obtain the most play, and get along with the least study.  I used then often to think how glad I would be when my school-days should be over; but how little did I then realize that I was then enjoying my happiest days; for, with many others, I now believe, our school days to be the happiest period of life.  Time passed on, till I grew up, and married.  I left my native place which was Salem, in the State of New Hampshire, and removed to Western Canada.  When you look around, my boy, over this prosperous and growing country, with its well-cultivated farms, and numerous towns and villages, you can form no idea of what the place was like when I arrived here, fifty-six years ago last February.  Your grandfather was born, and passed the days of his childhood and early youth, in Scotland, but when he was nearly grown to manhood his parents emigrated to the United States, where he resided for some years; but as he grew older he became prejudiced against the ‘Yankee Rule,’ as he styled the Republican Government of the United State, and, soon after our marriage, he resolved to remove to Canada.  ’I desire,’ said he, ’to seek a home where I hope to spend my life, be it long or short, and that home must be in a country subject to the British Government under which, I am proud to say, I was born, and under which I wish to die.’  I was willing to make any sacrifice to please my husband, for whom I had a deep affection,” and, as grandma said