Now, George Mordington and Marion Weatherly had known each other from childhood. I do not say that they had loved each other from that period; but they were at the same school together, and even before they left it, they were _equalled_ to each other. This _equalling_, or, as it is sometimes called, _evening_ to each other, by schoolmates or acquaintances, often goes far towards producing the wedded love of riper years. Many a match would never have been made, but for the schoolboy's or the comrade's jeer. Once name young hearts in the same breath, and you draw a magic circle round them; and, however little they may be acquainted with each other, whoever of the two may break through that circle, strikes a passing pang into the bosom of the other. Pride feels wounded, if nothing else does; but there is a feeling deeper and more tender than pride that has been rudely touched. It does not last long; but it is keen while it lasts. I am perfectly aware that there are many who may say, "Pshaw! it is all nonsense; who cares anything about these things _now_?" No middle-aged person, I grant you. Individuals of such an age like some home truth--something that comes home to their business and their bosoms as they are; and when such a thing meets them they say, "Oh, it is very natural." Granted that _it_ is natural, why should people of middle age, yea, or of grey hairs, forget that they were once young; and that what is now "stale, flat, and unprofitable" to them, is still the feelings of thousands--is still delightful to thousands--was once _their_ feelings, and delightful to _them_? Though past the sunny heyday ourselves, we like not to hear either man or woman cry out, with the Preacher, "all is vanity!" For light is beautiful--so is the sun that sheds it forth. The fair earth, with its buds, its flowers, its leaves, its fruits, and its trees with their singing birds--they are all beautiful--exquisitely beautiful! No man can look upon the works of his Maker, without adoring, worshipping, and loving the Power that formed them. Oh, when we so look abroad upon the glorious creation that is above, beneath, and around us--when we see so much that is measureless, magnificent, and that steals forth in beauty as a bud opens, until its loveliness is revealed before the very soul; and, above all, when we think also of the kind hearts that share our sorrows and our joys, that watch over us and that throb for us, that mourn with us and rejoice with us, and that are one with us in all things--we are tempted to say that all is "not vanity," but that man is the author of his own "vexation of spirit." Now George Mordington was one who loved all the works of nature for their loveliness. He saw nothing to which his young heart would respond, "it is vanity!" He loved the very worm that crawled--writhing and dying as it crawled--over his path, and pushed it gently with his foot upon its parent earth, that it might live. Was there nothing in the