"Then I think you might sympathise more ardently with me," the young man answered, half doggedly, "I am nearly tired of waiting for that opportunity that never comes." "Don't blame me, boy, before you know," was the serious retort, "I am trying my skill in your cause all this while. It is solely in your interest that I have planned this Christmas festivity. I can imagine no moment more propitious for the pleading of your cause, than one snatched from the confusion and excitement of such an hour, when the heart is made suggestive by strains of music and peals of laughter and sounds of gaiety and gladness everywhere." "You are right," Vivian said, smiling. "I did not give you credit though, for so much sentimentality." "It is not that," the old man answered sadly. "No, my dear boy, but, no matter how capricious and fickle time is, it cannot alter the heart. What is love to-day, was love in my day, and for ages before, and will be to the end of time. It is a very universal passion, and is easily aroused. A note of music, a breath, a sigh or a little pressure of the hand may be enough to call it out from its hidden nook within the heart. You can't tell me what it is to love, my boy, nor can I tell you, though we've both passed through the experience, the explicable part is a prominent part, I admit, if we analyse the little creeping sensations of gladness, that a touch of her hand, no matter how inadvertent, or the steady gaze of her deep eyes, could cause us to feel. Why, my dear boy, I am an old man now, but my memory is young yet, and I dwell on this dear page of my past, with the same feelings of gratification that animate you on your first experience. I don't know now, any more than I did then, though I'm an older and a wiser man, what there is in a woman's clear eye, a woman's voice or a woman's hand, to make us shiver and creep, and unman us the way they do; but perhaps 'tis the mystery makes the charm, if so, may it never be unravelled, for a fellow's love days are about the only things which can compensate him for the misery of the rest of his life." This, contrary to appearances, fell as gall on the heart of Vivian Standish, he who had never loved with a pure, unsullied devotion, grieved to hear of the joys of one who had. It is bad enough, that certain luxuries of life have been denied us, either through our own folly or the still less bitter interference of others. How much worse it becomes when we are forced to listen to the story of their worth, from those who have gained what we have so recklessly lost! Such words as those addressed by Henry Rayne, were perhaps the only ones that could impress the hardened heart of Vivian Standish with a hatred for the crimes and follies of his life. CHAPTER XXXV. My latest found-- Heaven's last, best gift. My ever new delight --_Milton_