There are friends too yet left, who come in upon your evening hours, and light up the loitering time with dreamy story of the years that are gone.  How eagerly you listen to some gossiping veteran friend, who with his deft words calls up the thread of some by-gone years of life; and with what a careless, yet grateful recognition you lapse, as it were, into the current of the past, and live over again by your hospitable blaze the stir, the joy, and the pride of your lost manhood.

The children of friends too have grown upon your march, and come to welcome you with that reverent deference which always touches the heart of age.  That wild boy Will,—­the son of a dear friend,—­who but a little while ago was worrying you with his boyish pranks, has now shot up into tall and graceful youth, and evening after evening finds him making part of your little household group.

——­Does the fond old man think that he is all the attraction!

It may be that in your dreamy speculations about the future of your children, (for still you dream,) you think that Will may possibly become the husband of the sedate and kindly Madge.  It worries you to find Nelly teasing him as she does; that mad hoiden will never be quiet; she provokes you excessively:  and yet she is a dear creature; there is no meeting those laughing blue eyes of hers without a smile and an embrace!

It pleases you however to see the winning frankness with which Madge always receives Will.  And with a little of your old vanity of observation you trace out the growth of their dawning attachment.  It provokes you to find Nelly breaking up their quiet tete-a-tetes with her provoking sallies, and drawing away Will to some saunter in the garden, or to some mad gallop over the hills.

At length upon a certain summer’s day Will asks to see you.  He approaches with a doubtful and disturbed look; you fear that wild Nell has been teasing him with her pranks.  Yet he wears not so much an offended look as one of fear.  You wonder if it ever happened to you to carry your hat in just that timid manner, and to wear such a shifting expression of the eye, as poor Will wears just now?  You wonder if it ever happened to you to begin to talk with an old friend of your father’s in just that abashed way?  Will must have fallen into some sad scrape.—­Well, he is a good fellow, and you will help him out of it!

You look up as he goes on with his story;—­you grow perplexed yourself;—­you scarce believe your own ears.

——­“Nelly?”—­Is Will talking of Nelly?

“Yes, sir,—­Nelly.”

——­“What!—­and you have told all this to Nelly—­that you love her?”

“I have, sir.”

“And she says”—­

“That I must speak with you, sir.”

“Bless my soul!—­But she’s a good girl;”—­and the old man wipes his eyes.

——­“Nell!—­are you there?”

And she comes,—­blushing, lingering, yet smiling through it all.