The preparation and voyage to India, new companions, and ever-changing scenes, hushed my feelings, and produced a calm that might be called a state of blessedness--a condition in which the ignoble and inferior ingredients of our nature were subdued by the divinity of mind. Years rolled on in almost constant service; nor do I remember many of the events of that time, even with interest or regret. In one advance of the army to which I was attached, we had some skirmishing with the irregulars of our foe; the pursuit was rapid, and I fell behind my detachment, wounded and weary, in ascending a ghaut, resting in the jungle, with languid eyes fixed on the ground, without any particular feeling but that of fatigue, and the smarting of my shoulder. A _cowslip_ caught my sight! my blood rushed to my heart--and, shuddering, I started on my feet, felt no fatigue, knew of no wound, and joined my party. I had not seen this flower for ten years! but it probably saved my life--an European officer, wounded and alone, might have tempted the avarice of some of the numerous and savage followers of an Indian army. In the cooler and calmer hours of reflection since, I have often thought that this appearance was a mere phantom, an illusion--the offspring of weakness: I saw it but for a moment, and too imperfectly to be assured of reality; and whatever I believed at the time seems now to have been a painting on the mind rather than an object of vision; but how that image started up. I conjecture not--the effect was immediate and preservative. This flower was again seen in Spain: I had the command of an advance party, and in one of the recesses of the Pyrenees, of the romantic, beautiful Pyrenees, upon a secluded bank, surrounded by a shrubbery so lovely as to be noticed by many--was a _cowslip_. It was now nearly twenty years since I had seen it in Mysore: I did not start; but a cold and melancholy chill came over me; yet I might possibly have gazed long on this humble little flower, and recalled many dormant thoughts, had not a sense of duty (for we momentarily expected an attack) summoned my attentions to the realities of life: so, drawing the back of my hand across my eyes, I cheered my party with, "Forward, lads," and pursued my route, and saw it no more, until England and all her flowery meadows met my view; but many days and service had wasted life, and worn the fine edge of sensibility away; they were now before me in endless profusion, almost unheeded, and without excitement; I viewed not the cowslip, when fifty, as I had done with the eyes of nineteen. * * * * * THE CHRISTMAS BOX. This is the happiest _title_ in the whole list of annuals. There is nothing sentimental or lachrymose in it; but it is warm and seasonable, and done up in a holly-green binding, it is all over old Christmas.