"The root of bitterness," said I, "is removed at last, and I can only wonder at my own stupidity in not thinking of the simple remedy before--but Heaven forgive me! I had entirely forgotten your headache: the sound of that file must have been _torture_ to you!" She smiled sweetly as she leaned her head on my shoulder, declaring--although her forehead burnt my hand, and the blood was _raging_ through her veins, that it was "quite cured, _since the door shut so easily_!!" Uncomplaining, devoted, self-sacrificing treasure of my heart! How could I do less than clasp her to my bosom and swear to cherish her with tenfold care, and pray--while I kissed away the tear from her eye--that my own cruel thoughtlessness might never fill its place with another. Such pleasure was too rare and valuable to be interrupted at the moment of its birth--so I look my arm chair from the corner, and sitting down at the side of Julia, who, while she held my hand, looked me in the face with very much of that expression of innocent delight, which so rarely survives childhood. I pursued my cogitations somewhat in the following order. "Life is made up of moments. Our happiness or unhappiness during any one of these moments depends almost invariably upon the merest _trifles_. If these momentary trifles are in the scale of happiness, life is happy. Take care then of trifles, and _great_ events will take care of themselves. (Somewhere about here I began to think _aloud_!) I lost a grandfather--an amiable, excellent, and most affectionate grandfather--and my grief was _great_. Nevertheless, I do believe that if the _hard bottomed_ chair, [N. B. It was of white oak.] in which I have sat for the last eight--yes! nine years--if this chair had but been well covered with a good, soft sheepskin--that sheepskin--purchased at the cost of ninepence,--would have saved me from a greater grief than the death of my grandfather!" "It is a mortifying reflection," said Julia, interrupting my soliloquy, "and one which at first thought would seem to speak little for your heart--yet a true one perhaps; and not more true with you than with many others." "And still," said I, "I am without the sheepskin. Why? Because the pain endured in a single moment is so trifling that if we do not take the trouble to add all the moments together and look at the pain _in the aggregate_, one would hardly turn his hand upside down to be freed from it." "But why not purchase the sheepskin, now that you _have_ added the moments together?" said she. "After all my reflection I should never have thought of that but for you. But a sheepskin! It will never do! A green velvet cushion may answer instead; and as the old one in your rocking chair seems to be somewhat worn I must even buy another for you." "Oh! _green_ velvet by all means!" said she. "It will correspond so well with the carpet and the new hearth rug which you promised me a month since. That was to have _green_ for its border, you know."