You go to see a far-away friend: his was not a “nice match;” he was married years before you; and yet the beaming looks of his wife and his lively smile are as fresh and honest as they were years ago; and they make you ashamed of your disconsolate humor. Your stay is lengthened, but the home letters are not urgent for your return; yet they are marvelously proper letters, and rounded with a French _adieu_. You could have wished a little scrawl from your boy at the bottom, in the place of the postscript, which gives you the names of a new opera troupe; and you hint as much—a very bold stroke for you. Ben—she says—writes too shamefully. And at your return there is no great anticipation of delight; in contrast with the old dreams, that a pleasant summer’s journey has called up, your parlor as you enter it—so elegant, so still—so modish—seems the charnel-house of your heart. By and by you fall into weary days of sickness; you have capital nurses—nurses highly recommended—nurses who never make mistakes—nurses who have served long in the family. But alas for that heart of sympathy, and for that sweet face, shaded with your pain—like a soft landscape with flying clouds—you have none of them! Your pattern wife may come in, from time to time, to look after your nurse, or to ask after your sleep, and glide out—her silk dress rustling upon the door—like dead leaves in the cool night breezes of winter. Or, perhaps, after putting this chair in its place, and adjusting to a more tasteful fold that curtain—she will ask you, with a tone that might mean sympathy, if it were not a stranger to you—if she can do anything more. Thank her—as kindly as you can, and close your eyes, and dream—or rouse up, to lay your hand upon the head of your little boy—to drink in health and happiness from his earnest look as he gazes strangely upon your pale and shrunken forehead. Your smile even, ghastly with long suffering, disturbs him; there is no interpreter, save the heart, between you. Your parched lips feel strangely to his flushed, healthful face; and he steps about on tip-toe, at a motion from the nurse, to look at all those rosy-colored medicines upon the table—and he takes your cane from the corner, and passes his hand over the smooth ivory head; and he runs his eye along the wall from picture to picture, till it rests on one he knows—a figure in bridal dress—beautiful, almost fond—and he forgets himself, and says aloud—“There’s mamma!” The nurse puts her finger to her lip; you waken from your doze to see where your eager boy is looking; and your eyes, too, take in much as they can of that figure—now shadowy to your fainting vision—doubly shadowy to your fainting heart!