One thought, one image only dwelt in the young man's mind, and what that thought was, his tell-tale lips clearly revealed:--"Redbud! Redbud!" they murmured; and the dreamer seemed to be wholly dead to that splendid scene around him, dreaming of his love. There are those who speak slightingly of boyhood and its feelings, scoffing at the early yearnings of the heart, and finding only food for jest in those innocent and childish raptures and regrets. We do not envy such. That man's heart must be made of doubtful stuff, who jeers at the fresh dreams of youth; or rather, he must have no heart at all--above all, no sweet and affecting recollections. There is something touching in the very idea of this pure and unselfish emotion, which the hardened nature of the grown-up man can never feel again. Men often dream about their childhood, and shed unavailing tears as they gaze in fancy on their own youthful faces, and with the pencil of imagination slowly trace the old forms and images. Said a writer of our acquaintance, no matter who, since no one read or thought of him:--"The writer of these idle lines finds no difficulty in painting for himself a Titian picture, in which, as in his life-picture, his own figure lies on the canvas. Long ago--a long, long time ago--in fact, when he was a boy, and loved dearly a child like himself, a child who is now a fair and beautiful-browed woman, and who smiles with a dreamy, thoughtful expression, when his face comes to her--long ago, flowers were very bright in the bright May day, by a country brookside. The butter-cups were over all the hills, for children to put under their chins, and pea-blossoms, very much like lady-slippers, swayed prettily in the wind. Beneath the feet of the boy and girl--she was a merry, bright-eyed child! how I love her still!--broke crocuses and violets, and a thousand wild flowers, fresh and full of fairy beauty. The grass was green and soft, and the birds rose through the air on fluttering wings, singing and rejoicing, and the clouds floated over them as only clouds in May can float, quickly, hopefully, with a dash of changeful April in them--not like those of August: for the May cloud is a maiden, a child, full of life and joy, running and playing, and looking playfully back at the winds as they rustle on--not August-like--a thoughtful ripened beauty, large, lazy, and contemplative, whose spring of youth has passed, whose summer has arrived, in all its wealth, and power, and languid splendor. Well, they wandered--the boy and girl--on the bright May day, pleasantly across the hills, and along the brook, which ran merrily over the pebbles as bright as diamonds. That boy has now become a man, and he has vainly sought, in all the glittering pursuits of life, an adequate recompense for the death of those soft hours. Having gone, as all things must go, they left no equivalent in the future. But not, therefore, in sadness does he write this: rather in deep joy, and as though he had said--