Need I tell you, dear friend, who know it so well, that I am happy?

Not, my love, that such tragedies can be forgotten—­these deep wounds leave a scar.  This one brought my husband’s first white hairs, and took away my girlhood for ever.  But if the first blush of careless gaiety has gone from life, if we are a little “old before our time,” it may be that this state of things has its advantages.  Perhaps, having known together such real affliction, we cannot now afford to be disturbed by the petty vexations and worthless misunderstandings that form the troubles of smoother lives.  Perhaps, having been all but so awfully parted, we can never afford, in this short life, to be otherwise than of one heart and one soul.  Perhaps, my dear, in short, the love that kept faith through shame, and was cemented by fellow-suffering, can hardly do otherwise than flourish to our heart’s best content in the sunshine of prosperity with which God has now blessed us.

THE SMUT.

The councillor’s chimney smoked.  It always did smoke when the wind was in the north.  A Smut came down and settled on a brass knob of the fender, which the councillor’s housekeeper had polished that very morning.  The shining surface reflected the Smut, and he seemed to himself to be two.

“How large I am!” said he, with complacency.  “I am quite a double Smut.  I am bigger than any other.  If I were a little harder, I should be a cinder, not to say a coal.  Decidedly my present position is too low for so important an individual.  Will no one recognize my merit and elevate me?”

But no one did.  So the Smut determined to raise himself, and taking advantage of a draught under the door, he rose upwards and alighted on the nose of the councillor, who was reading the newspaper.

“This is a throne, a crimson one,” said the Smut, “made on purpose for me.  But somehow I do not seem so large as I was.”

The truth is that the councillor (though a great man) was, in respect of his nose, but mortal.  It was not made of brass; it would not (as the cabinet-makers say) take a polish.  It did not reflect the object seated on it.

“It is unfortunate,” said the Smut.  “But it is not fit that an individual of my position (almost, as I may say, a coal) should have a throne that does not shine.  I must certainly go higher.”

But unhappily for the Smut, at this moment the councillor became aware of something on his nose.  He put up his hand and rubbed the place.  In an instant the poor Smut was destroyed.  But it died on the throne, which was some consolation.

Moral.

More chimneys smoke than the councillor’s chimney, and there are many
Smuts in the world.  Let those who have found a brass knob be satisfied.

THE CRICK.

It was a Crick in the wall, a very small Crick too.  But it is not always the biggest people who have the strongest affections.