CHRISTOPHER IN HIS SPORTING JACKET 



hand when we should mingle with it no more. The 

 thoughts that possessed our most secret bosom failed 

 not by the least observant to be discovered in our 

 open eyes. They who had liked us before, now loved 

 us; our faults, our follies, the insolencies of our reck- 

 less boyhood, were all forgotten; whatever had been 

 our sins, pride towards the poor was never among the 

 number; we had shunned not stooping our head be- 

 neath the humblest lintel; our mite had been given 

 to the widow who had lost her own; quarrelsome with 

 the young we might sometimes have been, for boy- 

 blood is soon heated, and boils before a defying eye; 

 but in one thing at least we were Spartans, we revered 

 the head of old age. 



And many at last were the kind — some the sad 

 farewells, erelong whispered by us at gloaming among 

 the glens. Let them rest for ever silent amidst that 

 music in the memory which is felt, not heard — its 

 blessing mute though breathing, like an inarticulate 

 prayer! But to Thee — O palest Phantom — clothed 

 in white raiment, not like unto a ghost risen with its 

 grave-clothes to appal, but like a seraph descending 

 from the skies to bless — unto Thee will we dare to 

 speak, as through the mist of years back comes thy 

 yet unfaded beauty, charming us, while we cannot 

 choose but weep, with the selfsame vision that often 

 glided before us long ago in the wilderness, and at 

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