166 THE CHRISTMAS ROSE. 



path would desire to retrace the whole road ! But 

 the new year's salutations that ensued, when child- 

 hood had ripened into youth, and, yet more, those 

 which gladdened seasons of longer experience — 

 oh, it is hard to feel that they must never again 

 be mine ! 



The happiest part of the happiest new year, was 

 that, when I could reiterate the warmest wishes of 

 the season to one on whom I might look with the 

 sweet retrospections, combined with recent fears 

 and present security, so beautifully expressed in 

 those simple lines, 



' We twa ha'e rin about the braes, 



And pu'd the gowans fine, 

 But we've wander'd mony a weary foot 



Sin' auld lang syne, 

 We twa ha'e paid let i' the burn 



Frae mornin's sun till dine, 

 But seas between us braid ha'e roare 



Sin' auld lang syne.' 



No : this world can afford us nothing, fully to oc- 

 cupy the chasm that remains, after the removal of 

 an object endeared by first and fondest associations. 

 Some, I know, have not their warm affections fully 

 drawn out until, beyond the circle of their home, 

 they meet with one capable of attracting them : 

 and, no doubt, the feeling is then more intense, and 

 absorbing ; but as deep it cannot be : because it 

 cannot carry its associations so far back, into early 



