And Frank turns—­thinking probably, if he thinks at all about it, that cats are very apt to lie still when they sleep.

As for Nelly, half neglected by your thought as well as by your eye, while mischievous-looking Madge is sitting by her, you little know as yet what kindness, what gentleness, you are careless of.  Few loves in life, and you will learn it before life is done, can balance the lost love of a sister.

As for your parents, in the intervals of the game you listen dreamily to their talk with the mother of Madge,—­good Mrs. Boyne.  It floats over your mind, as you rest your chin upon your clenched hand, like a strain of old familiar music,—­a household strain that seems to belong to the habit of your ear,—­a strain that will linger about it melodiously for many years to come,—­a strain that will be recalled long time hence, when life is earnest and its cares heavy, with tears of regret and with sighs of bitterness.

By-and-by your game is done; and other games, in which join Nelly (the tears come when you write her name now!) and Madge, (the smiles come when you look on her then,) stretch out that sweet eventide of Home, until the lamp flickers, and you speak your friends—­adieu.  To Madge, it is said boldly,—­a boldness put on to conceal a little lurking tremor; but there is no tremor in the home good-night.

——­Aye, my boy, kiss your mother,—­kiss her again; fondle your sweet Nelly; pass your little hand through the gray locks of your father; love them dearly while you can!  Make your good-nights linger and make your adieus long, and sweet, and often repeated.  Love with your whole soul,—­Father, Mother, and Sister,—­for these loves shall die!

——­Not indeed in thought,—­God be thanked!  Nor yet in tears,—­for He is merciful!  But they shall die, as the leaves die,—­die, as Spring dies into the heat and ripeness of Summer, and as boyhood dies into the elasticity and ambition of youth.  Death, Distance, and Time shall each one of them dig graves for your affections; but this you do not know, nor can know, until the story of your life is ended.

The dreams of riches, of love, of voyage, of learning, that light up the boy age with splendor, will pass on and over into the hotter dreams of youth.  Spring buds and blossoms, under the glowing sun of April, nurture at their heart those firstlings of fruit which the heat of summer shall ripen.

You little know—­and for this you may well thank Heaven—­that you are leaving the Spring of life, and that you are floating fast from the shady sources of your years into heat, bustle, and storm.  Your dreams are now faint, flickering shadows, that play like fire-flies in the coppices of leafy June.  They have no rule but the rule of infantile desire; they have no joys to promise greater than the joys that belong to your passing life; they have no terrors but such terrors as the darkness of a Spring night makes.  They do not take hold on your soul as the dreams of youth and manhood will do.