But of all the faces that used to be ranged below—four hundred men and boys—there was not one with whom to join hands and live back again. Their griefs, joy and toil were chaining them to their labor of life. Each one in his thought coursing over a world as wide as my own—how many thousand worlds of thought upon this one world of ours! I stepped dreamily through the corridors of the old Atheneum, thinking of that first fearful step, when the faces were new and the stern tutor was strange, and the prolix Livy _so_ hard. I went up at night, and skulked around the buildings when the lights were blazing from all the windows, and they were busy with their tasks—plain tasks, and easy tasks—because they are certain tasks. Happy fellows—thought I—who have only to do what is set before you to be done. But the time is coming, and very fast, when you must not only do, but know what to do. The time is coming when, in place of your one master, you will have a thousand masters—masters of duty, of business, of pleasure, and of grief—giving you harder lessons, each one of them, than any of your Fluxions. MORNING will pass, and the NOON will come—hot and scorching. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration] THE PACKET OF BELLA I HAVE not forgotten that packet of Bella; I did not once forget it. And when I saw Lilly—now the grown-up Lilly, happy in her household, and blithe as when she was a maiden—she gave it to me. She told me, too, of Bella’s illness, and of her suffering, and of her manner when she put the little packet in her hand “for Cousin Paul.” But this I will not repeat—I can not. I know not why it was, but I shuddered at the mention of her name. There are some who will talk, at table and in their gossip, of dead friends; I wonder how they do it? For myself, when the grave has closed its gates on the faces of those I love—however busy my mournful thought may be—the tongue is silent. I can not name their names; it shocks me to hear them named. It seems like tearing open half-healed wounds, and disturbing with harsh, worldly noise the sweet sleep of death. I loved Bella. I know not how I loved her—whether as a lover, or as a husband loves a wife; I only know this—I always loved her. She was so gentle—so beautiful—so confiding, that I never once thought but that the whole world loved her as well as I. There was only one thing I never told to Bella; I would tell her of all my grief, and of all my joys; I would tell her my hopes, my ambitious dreams, my disappointments, my anger, and my dislikes; but I never told her how much I loved her. I do not know why, unless I knew that it was needless. But I should as soon have thought of telling Bella on some winter’s day—Bella, it is winter—or of whispering to her on some balmy day of August—Bella, it is summer—as of telling her, after she had grown to girlhood—Bella, I love you!