“Because he is so cold; he does not kiss you, Bella, so often as my mother does; and, besides, when he forbids your going away, he does not say, as mother does—my little girl will be tired, she had better not go—but he says only—Isabel must not go. I wonder what makes him talk so?” “Why, Paul, he is a man, and doesn’t—at any rate, I love him, Paul. Besides, my mother is sick, you know.” “But Isabel, my mother will be your mother, too. Come, Bella, we will go ask her if we may go.” And there I am, the happiest of boys, pleading with the kindest of mothers. And the young heart leans into that mother’s heart—none of the void now that will overtake it like an opening Korah gulf, in the years that are to come. It is joyous, full, and running over! “You may go,” she says, “if your uncle is willing.” “But mamma, I am afraid to ask him, I do not believe he loves me.” “Don’t say so, Paul,” and she draws you to her side, as if she would supply by her own love the lacking love of a universe. “Go, with your cousin Isabel, and ask him kindly; and if he says no—make no reply.” And with courage, we go hand in hand, and steal in at the library door. There he sits—I seem to see him now—in the old wainscoted room, covered over with books and pictures; and he wears his heavy-rimmed spectacles, and is poring over some big volume, full of hard words, that are not in any spelling-book. We step up softly; and Isabel lays her little hand upon his arm; and he turns, and says—“Well, my little daughter?” I ask if we may go down to the big rock in the meadow? He looks at Isabel, and says he is afraid—“we can not go.” “But why, uncle? It is only a little way, and we will be very careful.” “I am afraid, my children; do not say any more: you can have the pony, and Tray, and play at home.” “But, uncle—” “You need say no more, my child.” I pinch the hand of little Isabel, and look in her eye—my own half-filling with tears. I feel that my forehead is flushed, and I hide it behind Bella’s tresses—whispering to her at the same time—“Let us go.” “What, sir,” says my uncle, mistaking my meaning—“do you persuade her to disobey?” Now I am angry, and say blindly—“No, sir, I didn’t!” And then my rising pride will not let me say that I wished only Isabel should go out with me. Bella cries; and I shrink out; and am not easy until I have run to bury my head in my mother’s bosom. Alas! pride can not always find such covert! There will be times when it will harass you strangely; when it will peril friendships—will sever old, standing intimacy; and then—no resource but to feed on its own bitterness. Hateful pride!—to be conquered, as a man would conquer an enemy, or it will make whirlpools in the current of your affections—nay, turn the whole tide of the heart into rough, and unaccustomed channels. But boyhood has its GRIEF, too, apart from PRIDE.