Mr. Holmes, or Gilbert, as she called him when not using some term of endearment, which she generally did, had passed his life in the West, as the country about the Mississippi Valley was called in his youth. He was fond of telling of the settlement of this new country and the people who had been connected with its early history, and in this was led on by his sweet wife. Into these accounts were interwoven glimpses of his own life, so that I was led to ask him more about himself, and particularly his early adventures, which his wife was most fond of having him recall. This I did at first, I will confess, not so much out of any great interest as that I might find excuse for being the more in his presence and that of his dear lady. After a day thus passed, I wrote out at night what he had recounted. Not at the beginning with any purpose, but because I ever had a peculiar knack in this direction, being designed, I think, from the first to be a clerk or something of that kind, and nothing more. However, lest I should transgress some law of good manners, I after a while informed Mr. Holmes of what I was doing. This, I saw, did not meet his entire approval, though he gave no expression to his thoughts save a look of surprise; but Mrs. Holmes, upon hearing it, was greatly pleased, and thereafter lost no opportunity to aid me in my efforts to draw from him the particulars of his early life. In this, however, we were never wholly successful, because of his reluctance to speak of himself; but as she seemed to know every incident of his career and to treasure it as a sweet memory, when he halted or sought to break the story, she would put her hand on his, and taking up the narrative go on, perhaps, until we parted for the night. These interruptions were greatly to his liking, it was clear, for he loved above all things to listen to her voice; and I continually detected him at such times looking at her with eyes half of remonstrance at what she told, but altogether full of affection for her and her engaging ways. By this the reader will see—and I am glad to make it plain to him—that while the life of Gilbert Holmes seems to be related by himself, it was in many parts—and the most interesting parts, I think—told by his wife as she sat by his side with her hand clasping his. Cherished memory! Sweet tale of love and adventure sweetly told! Surely I shall never know anything so beautiful again. Our journey too quickly over, cut short the account of Mr. Holmes’s life, and this to my sorrow, and so I said. "You have heard but a part, and that not the most entertaining, you would think, could you hear all," Mrs. Holmes answered; "for among other things he has been a soldier in two of his country’s wars, and in the last a general," she added, with a fond look at her husband. "I am sure his life must have been full to the brim," I answered.