He was once seen to smile compassionately on the perseverance of a little child who laboured through a whole sultry day in digging a little pond in his garden. By the time it was finished, and before it could be filled, it was bed-time, and a rainy night rendered it useless. When Paul despised the labour of this child, he little thought how his own life would resemble that sultry day. He, too, spent his sunshiny hours in laborious preparation; and fell into his long sleep to find on waking that his toil had been in vain. When the Wallaces at length took their final leave of the place, they alighted at Armstrong’s, on their way, to say farewell. The old man was, as usual, in his garden. “Are you the last, the very last?” said he. “Except two or three workmen and servants who stay to pack a few things and lock up our house.” “I hope then they will take down yonder clock which sounds to me like a funeral bell.” “Can you hear it so far as this?” “O yes. Hark! It is beginning to strike noon. I used to like its stroke when it brought the work-people flocking from their cottages in the morning, or when they came pouring out as it told their dinner hour. But now it only puts one in mind of days that are gone, and I shall be glad when it is down.” “You do then see something to regret in the days you speak of?” said Mr. Wallace. “This is more than I expected from you. “I might not say so, perhaps,” returned the old man, “if yonder valley could be made what it once was. But that can never be; and there is no comparison between a settlement where art and industry thrive, and a greater number of human beings share its prosperity every year, and a scene like that, where there is everything to put one in mind of man but man himself.” “And where,” said Mr. Wallace, “we are chiefly reminded of the ignorance and folly to which the change is owing. I should wish for your sake that we could raze all those buildings, and make the ground a smooth turf as it was before, if I did not hope that the works might be reopened,—though not by us,—in happier days.” “I should be more glad to see such a day than I was to witness that which brought you here,” said the old man. “But my sands are nearly run; and, even if nobody shakes the glass, I can scarcely hope that anything will bring you back within my hour. But come,” he added, swallowing his emotion, “where’s your lady?” “Gone to speak to Mrs. Margaret. Will you gather her a bunch of your flowers before we go?” “Aye, and a choice one; for she is a choice flower herself,” said the old man. “From the hour that one saw her walking over the heath in the wintry wind in her cloak and thick shoes to show a poor neighbour how to manage a new-dropt calf, I pronounced you, sir, a happy man. Whatever fortune betides you, you will find a companion and helper in her.”