One day I was introduced by a friend to a very attractive lady school-teacher, who combined with superior domestic training, elocutionary and musical accomplishments. She was so sincere and sympathetic that I found myself almost unconsciously expressing the same sentiments that I had spoken to another long ago in the city by the sea. The love which I supposed had passed on forever to the other world, seemed to be sent back to me through the opening clouds of evening by my self-sacrificing spirit bride, to give to another who would love and cherish the helpless little ones who so needed a mother's care. I poured forth all my sorrows, troubles, perplexities and needs to a congenial, sympathetic spirit, and she consented to go to my home and take up the burdens which the ascended mother had been required by the angel-world to lay down. On the arrival of the new housekeeper, order was evolved out of chaos; the children received the best of care, and the horse a much needed rest after his arduous labors in carting to and from the depot the numerous hired women who had been "weighed in the balance and found wanting." In the following month of roses, Lillian concluded that my "first glance" attachment was reciprocated; we were married in her father's house at Allston; we enjoyed a brief tour of the White Mountains, and then settled down in our cottage to our life work. The peace of God, which always comes, sooner or later to those who strive to do their duty, was ours, and the inspiration of Whittier's sweet poem "My Psalm" brought infinite consolation to our blended lives. "I mourn no more my vanished years; Beneath a tender rain, An April rain of smiles and tears, My heart is young again. "All as God wills, who wisely heeds To give or to withhold, And knoweth more of all my needs Than all my prayers have told. "All the jarring notes of life Seem blending in a psalm, And all the angles of its strife Slow rounding into calm. "And so the shadows fall apart, And so the sunbeams play; And all the windows of my heart I open to the day." CHAPTER XVI. ON THE POLITICAL STUMP. I had always been somewhat prominent in politics, being President of the Republican Club in our town, and that autumn I was hired by Dr. George B. Loring to conduct his campaign for the position of Representative in Congress; this I accomplished so successfully that Judge Thayer, the chairman of the State Committee, hired me to stump the Commonwealth against General Butler and in favor of the Hon. George D. Robinson as candidate for Governor. This campaign will long be remembered as being the most fiercely contested of any in the political history of Massachusetts, and many incidents in my career as a public speaker are much pleasanter in the reminiscence than in the endurance. One will suffice by way of illustration.