"So be it," he said, as he kissed her forehead; "may the Lord bless both my children." CHAPTER XXXV A RACE OF PLATERS Of the 26,250 days (which, after due allowance made for the little jangles of the sun and moon, are the up-cast of our living-time according to the wise man) that sage complains that no one produces anything exactly like the produce of its brother one day old. If it were so in the almanac of Solon, what can be expected now, when every day is supposed to achieve a long stride in advance of all previous ages, clapping their laurels on its own pert head? So have I seen a pretty little dear, with her hair upon her shoulders, dash out in front of the village mile-race, at half a skip from the winning-post, and scream out, "I have won it." To me, in my quiet slow-go pace, it would have been more than enough, if the morrow had been content with its yesterday, and backed it up in a friendly style. But instead of that, it only cared to indorse the safe corollary--"All in all, a human creature is nothing more than accident." Accident to wit, just out of luck, according to the word there used, which bears no merry meaning. Perhaps this on the whole was my disgrace; for a friend's good luck should be one's own. But could I put Tom Erricker in the most romantic scale of friendship (such as the Romans cultivated) against the heavenly Dariel? Those Tusculans knew not such love as ours; because they had no such girls to love. However, let Tom have his say. "BELOVED GEORGE,--You are my best friend, the only one that understands me, in this smiling vale of tears. You may not have heard from me for some months, because I have had the finest shooting I have ever yet been blest with. It makes one despise all the partridges and pheasants, tame fowl of a lower order. Grouse, my dear boy, and blackcocks too, and we heard of capercailzie! Tell old Stocks and Stones, who was so stingy about his rabbits, that I blow my nail at him, as the poet says. But that is not half of it. The grub--the grub--George, you never came across the like. I am seven pounds heavier than when I came down, in spite of walking off two pounds per diem. The wind seems to blow it back into you. And you make it up at dinner-time; and then you have cigars, such as you never put between your teeth; and then half-a-dozen lovely girls, all ready to scratch one another's faces, to draw you for their pal at billiards. And did not I show them a dodge or two?