With what a new air you walk the streets!  With what a triumph you speak, in your letter to Nelly, of “your family!” Who, that has not felt it, knows what it is to be “a man of family!”

How weak now seem all the imaginations of your single life; what bare, dry skeletons of the reality they furnished!  You pity the poor fellows who have no wives or children—­from your soul; you count their smiles as empty smiles, put on to cover the lack that is in them.  There is a freemasonry among fathers that they know nothing of.  You compassionate them deeply; you think them worthy objects of some charitable association; you would cheerfully buy tracts for them, if they would but read them,—­tracts on marriage and children.

——­And then “the boy,”—­such a boy!

There was a time when you thought all babies very much alike;—­alike?  Is your boy like anything, except the wonderful fellow that he is?  Was there ever a baby seen, or even read of, like that baby!

——­Look at him:  pick him up in his long, white gown:  he may have an excess of color,—­but such a pretty color! he is a little pouty about the mouth,—­but such a mouth!  His hair is a little scant, and he is rather wandering in the eye,—­but, Good Heavens, what an eye!

There was a time when you thought it very absurd for fathers to talk about their children; but it does not seem at all absurd now.  You think, on the contrary, that your old friends, who used to sup with you at the club, would be delighted to know how your baby is getting on, and how much he measures around the calf of the leg!  If they pay you a visit, you are quite sure they are in an agony to see Frank; and you hold the little squirming fellow in your arms, half conscience-smitten for provoking them to such envy as they must be suffering.  You make a settlement upon the boy with a chuckle,—­as if you were treating yourself to a mint-julep, instead of conveying away a few thousands of seven per cents.

——­Then the boy develops astonishingly.  What a head,—­what a foot,—­what a voice!  And he is so quiet withal,—­never known to cry, except under such provocation as would draw tears from a heart of adamant; in short, for the first six months he is never anything but gentle, patient, earnest, loving, intellectual, and magnanimous.  You are half afraid that some of the physicians will be reporting the case, as one of the most remarkable instances of perfect moral and physical development on record.

But the years roll on, in the which your extravagant fancies die into the earnest maturity of a father’s love.  You struggle gayly with the cares that life brings to your door.  You feel the strength of three beings in your single arm; and feel your heart warming toward God and man with the added warmth of two other loving and trustful beings.

How eagerly you watch the first tottering step of that boy; how you riot in the joy and pride that swell in that mother’s eyes, as they follow his feeble, staggering motions!  Can God bless his creatures more than he has blessed that dear Madge and you?  Has Heaven even richer joys than live in that home of yours?