"I know nothing that brings home to the heart so quickly the consciousness of increasing years, as to find those whom we used to look upon as children grown to maturity, taking upon themselves the care and responsibility of life. Here is Gretchen; a deeper bloom upon her cheek, and her eye sparkling with a higher pride." "Just as mid-day is brighter than the morning," said my friend. Down the hall came the pattering of little feet, and the nurse entered with two stout boys and a lovely girl, a second Gretchen, the same roguish blue eyes, and golden hair rippling away from her white forehead: "These are my hopes," said the father, and a smile curled his lip, amid, his eye filled with tenderness as he glanced at Gretchen's face. Lingering over the tea-table where Gretchen presided with more than youthful grace, we talked not only of the past, but of present work and life. "One," I continued, taking up the thread, "I met in Southern Italy, dreaming; as I was dreaming, by the dark grotto of Pausilippo. Meeting upon classic ground, it seemed strange to talk of old times, but we did. And sitting down upon the promontory of Baiae, looking off upon the blue sea, we told each other our respective stories; just as ships will shift their course to come within speaking distance, compare longitude, and exchange letters, and--part. I have not heard from Eckerman since." My dreams were pleasant that night, and the next morning there was another surprise for me. Gretchen's brother was the pastor of a little church just above them; I must not go without seeing him, Gretchen said. How could I? Euler was my classmate; together we labored for knowledge, and our first manly sympathies run in the same channel. On Sabbath I saw my friend in the pulpit. "How like his father," I whispered to Gretchen; the poetry in him warming his soul into a burst of fervid eloquence, and his face glowing with the beautiful truths he was unfolding to his hearers. An uncouth church of rough stone, with quaint windows and curious carvings, the ceiling arched, with a blue ground on which blazed innumerable stars. Strange and novel as it was, my eye never wandered from the speaker; the voice and expression so like the kind and generous man who had presided over the college, and who carried with him the affections of each succeeding class. This seems to me more of a triumph now, than it did then. A cultivated mind may challenge respect, but there is need of a noble one to win affection.