“She’ll make some man a fine wife, some day!” exclaimed the Ancient, blowing out a cloud of smoke, “ay, she’ll mak’ some man as fine a wife as ever was, some day.”

“You speak my very thought, Ancient,” said I, “she will indeed; what do you think, George?” But George’s answer was to choke suddenly, and, thereafter, to fall a-coughing.

“Smoke go t’ wrong way, Jarge?” inquired the Ancient, fixing him with his bright eye.

“Ay,” nodded George.

“Ha!” said the old man, and we smoked for a time in silence.

“So ’andsome as a picter she be!” said the Ancient suddenly.

“She is fairer than any picture,” said I impulsively, “and what is better still, her nature is as sweet and beautiful as her face!”

“’Ow do ’ee know that?” said George, turning sharply upon me.

“My eyes and ears tell me so, as yours surely must have done long ago,” I answered.

“Ye do think as she be a purty lass, then, Peter?” inquired the Ancient.

“I think,” said I, “that she is the prettiest lass I ever saw; don’t you think so, George?” But again George’s only answer was to choke.

“Smoke again, Jarge?” inquired the Ancient.

“Ay,” said George, as before.

“’Tis a fine thing to be young,” said the Ancient, after a somewhat lengthy pause, and with a wave of his long pipe-stem, “a very fine thing!”

“It is,” said I, “though we generally realize it all too late.”

As for George, he went on smoking.

“When you are young,” pursued the Ancient, “you eats well, an’ enjys it, you sleeps well an’ enjys it; your legs is strong, your arms is strong, an’ you bean’t afeard o’ nothin’ nor nobody.  Oh! life’s a very fine thing when you’re young; but youth’s tur’ble quick agoin’—­the years roll slow at first, but gets quicker ’n quicker, till, one day, you wakes to find you ‘m an old man; an’ when you’m old, the way gets very ‘ard, an’ toilsome, an’ lonely.”

“But there is always memory,” said I.

“You ’m right theer, Peter, so theer be—­so theer be why, I be a old, old man, wi’ more years than ’airs on my ‘ead, an’ yet it seems but yesterday as I were a-holdin’ on to my mother’s skirt, an’ wonderin’ ’ow the moon got lighted.  Life be very short, Peter, an’ while we ’ave it ’tis well to get all the ’appiness out of it we can.”

“The wisest men of all ages preached the same,” said I, “only they all disagreed as to how happiness was to be gained.”

“More fules they!” said the Ancient.

“Eh?” I exclaimed, sitting up.

“More fules they!” repeated the old man with a solemn nod.

“Why, then, do you know how true happiness may be found?’

“To be sure I du, Peter.”

“How?”

“By marriage, Peter, an’ ‘ard work!—­an’ they allus goes together.”

“Marriage!” said I.

“Marriage as ever was, Peter.”