Your man Tom has grown suddenly a very stupid fellow, and all your charity for withered wall-flowers is gone. Perhaps in your wrath the suspicion comes over you that she too wishes you were something higher, or more famous, or richer, or anything but what you are!—a very dangerous suspicion: for no man with any true nobility of soul can ever make his heart the slave of another’s condescension. But no—you will not, you can not believe this of Nelly; that face of hers is too mild and gracious; and her manner, as she takes your hand, after your heart is made sad, and turns away those rich blue eyes—shadowed more deeply than ever by the long and moistened fringe; and the exquisite softness and meaning of the pressure of those little fingers; and the low, half sob, and the heaving of that bosom in its struggles between love and duty—all forbid. Nelly, you could swear, is tenderly indulgent, like the fond creature that she is, toward all your short-comings, and would not barter your strong love and your honest heart for the greatest magnate in the land. What a spur to effort is the confiding love of a true-hearted woman! That last fond look of hers, hopeful and encouraging, has more power within it to nerve your soul to high deeds than all the admonitions of all your tutors. Your heart, beating large with hope, quickens the flow upon the brain, and you make wild vows to win greatness. But alas, this is a great world—very full, and very rough: ——all up-hill work when we would do; All down-hill, when we suffer.[3] Footnote 3: _Festus._ Hard, withering toil only can achieve a name; and long days, and months, and years, must be passed in the chase of that bubble—reputation, which, when once grasped, breaks in your eager clutch into a hundred lesser bubbles that soar above you still! A clandestine meeting from time to time, and a note or two tenderly written, keep up the blaze in your heart. But presently the lynx-eyed old guardian—so tender of your interests and hers—forbids even this irregular and unsatisfying correspondence. Now you can feed yourself only on stray glimpses of her figure—as full of sprightliness and grace as ever; and that beaming face, you are half sorry to see from time to time—still beautiful. You struggle with your moods of melancholy, and wear bright looks yourself—bright to her, and very bright to the eye of the old curmudgeon who has snatched your heart away. It will never do to show your weakness to a man. At length, on some pleasant morning, you learn that she is gone—too far away to be seen, too closely guarded to be reached. For awhile you throw down your books and abandon your toil in despair—thinking very bitter thoughts, and making very helpless resolves. My cigar is still burning, but it will require constant and strong respiration to keep it in a glow.