"Father, you are right. What a blessing it would be, if they could only fetch it round! Let us hope for the best, as they do. And now for the other question, all about myself; and I hope you will take the same liberal views. But it is a long story. Have your easy chair, and your little glass of mead that stops the cough. Well, Harold did some good in recommending that. You never get the cough as you used to have it." "Harold is a very clever fellow," my father said, after a sip or two; "if that boy would only stick to something--or if I could make a blend of you two--well, well, we can't have everything." "That is a righteous law for us; but it ought not to apply to you, sir, whose wishes are so moderate. For instance, I want a thing that I shall never get. May I call Mother in, to hear what it is?" In this there was wisdom, gracious wisdom, such as we are inspired with sometimes, however foolish we may generally be. For whatever opinion my father might form, he would have my mother looking at him, and then she would be sure to give a glance at me, and the experience of years would be belied unless she gave utterance to a conclusion not directly counter, but sub-contrary, hypenantious--if such a word is pardonable--to the view which her husband had ventured to form without waiting for her suggestion. For they had grown so much alike, that both of them doubted about the joint-stock wisdom; as we all despise home-produce. Seeing myself in the right way thus, while indulging in all due deference, I did my very best to let them know that I had striven after things above me. My father was ready to concede that point; but my mother could not conceive it; and was eager to branch out into a long discourse, about all the great people akin to us in body, but in mind not as yet awake to it. My father joined me in abbreviating that--though at such a time it was hard measure--but he heard the old Grandfather Clock strike one; and if mother got wound up on that chain, the hour-hand might go round the dial before he got any luncheon! Therefore he spoke decisively.