At length our cousin went abroad again to Europe. It was many years ago that we watched him sail away, and when Titbottom, and Prue, and I went home to dinner, the grace that was said that day was a fervent prayer for our cousin the curate. Many an evening afterward, the children wanted him, and cried themselves to sleep calling upon his name. Many an evening still our talk flags into silence as we sit before the fire, and Prue puts down her knitting and takes my hand, as if she knew my thoughts, altho we do not name his name. He wrote us letters as he wandered about the world. They were affectionate letters, full of observation, and thought, and description. He lingered longest in Italy, but he said his conscience accused him of yielding to the sirens; and he declared that his life was running uselessly away. At last he came to England. He was charmed with everything, and the climate was even kinder to him than that of Italy. He went to all the famous places, and saw many of the famous Englishmen, and wrote that he felt England to be his home. Burying himself in the ancient gloom of a university town, altho past the prime of life, he studied like an ambitious boy. He said again that his life had been wine poured upon the ground, and he felt guilty. And so our cousin became a curate.... Our children have forgotten their old playmate; but I am sure if there be any children in his parish, over the sea, they love our cousin the curate, and watch eagerly for his coming. Does his step falter now, I wonder; is that long fair hair gray; is that laugh as musical in those distant homes as it used to be in our nursery; has England among all her great and good men any man so noble as our cousin the curate? The great book is unwritten; the great deeds are undone; in no biographical dictionary will you find the name of our cousin the curate. Is his life therefore lost? Have his powers been wasted? I do not dare to say it, for I see Bourne on the pinnacle of prosperity, but still looking sadly for his castles in Spain; I see Titbottom, an old deputy bookkeeper, whom nobody knows, but with his chivalric heart loyal to children, his generous and humane spirit, full of sweet hope and faith and devotion; I see the superb Auriel, so lovely that the Indians would call her a smile of the Great Spirit, and as beneficent as a saint of the calendar--how shall I say what is lost and what is won. I know that in every way and by all His preachers God is served and His purposes accomplished. How shall I explain or understand? I, who am only an old bookkeeper in an old cravat. ARTEMUS WARD Born in 1834, died in England in 1867; his real name Charles Farrar Browne; noted as a humorous lecturer here and in England; published "Artemus Ward: His Book" in 1862; "Artemus Ward: His Travels" in 1865; "Artemus Ward in London" in 1867. FORREST AS OTHELLO[56]