By-and-by he speaks; and minds tie together by language, as the hearts have long tied by looks.  He wanders with you feebly, and with slow, wandering paces, upon the verge of the great universe of thought.  His little eye sparkles with some vague fancy that comes upon him first by language.  Madge teaches him the words of affection and of thankfulness; and she teaches him to lisp infant prayer; and by secret pains (how could she be so secret?) instructs him in some little phrase of endearment that she knows will touch your heart; and then she watches your coming; and the little fellow runs toward you, and warbles out his lesson of love in tones that forbid you any answer,—­save only those brimming eyes, turned first on her, and then on him,—­and poorly concealed by the quick embrace, and the kisses which you shower in transport!  Still slip on the years, like brimming bowls of nectar!  Another Madge is sister to Frank; and a little Nelly is younger sister to this other Madge.

——­Three of them! a charmed and mystic number, which, if it be broken in these young days,—­as, alas, it may be!—­will only yield a cherub angel to float over you, and to float over them,—­to wean you, and to wean them, from this world, where all joys do perish, to that seraph world where joys do last forever.

VI.

A Dream of Darkness.

Is our life a sun, that it should radiate light and heat forever?  Do not the calmest and brightest days of autumn show clouds, that drift their ragged edges over the golden disk, and bear down swift with their weight of vapors, until the sun’s whole surface is shrouded; and you can see no shadow of tree or flower upon the land, because of the greater and gulping shadow of the cloud?

Will not life bear me out; will not truth, earnest and stern, around me make good the terrible imagination that now comes swooping, heavily and darkly, upon my brain?

You are living in a little village not far away from the city.  It is a graceful and luxurious home that you possess.  The holly and the laurel gladden its lawn in winter; and bowers of blossoms sweeten it through all the summer.  You know each day of your return from the town, where first you will catch sight of that graceful figure flitting like a shadow of love beneath the trees; you know well where you will meet the joyous and noisy welcome of stout Frank, and of tottling Nelly.  Day after day and week after week they fail not.

A friend sometimes attends you; and a friend to you is always a friend to Madge.  In the city you fall in once more with your old acquaintance Dalton,—­the graceful, winning, yet dissolute man that his youth promised.  He wishes to see your cottage home.  Your heart half hesitates; yet it seems folly to cherish distrust of a boon companion in so many of your revels.

Madge receives him with that sweet smile which welcomes all your friends.  He gains the heart of Frank by talking of his toys and of his pigeons; and he wins upon the tenderness of the mother by his attentions to the child.  Even you repent of your passing shadow of dislike, and feel your heart warming toward him as he takes little Nelly in his arms and provokes her joyous prattle.