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Fair Nature, waking at her bridegroom's voice, arrived so early from a distant clime, smiled upon him sleepily, gladdening him in beauty with her sweet half-opened eyelids, and kissing him in faithfulness with dew-besprinkled lips.

Four meals a day, from earl to ceorl! "Happy times!" may sigh the descendant of the last, if he read these pages; partly so they were for the ceorl, but not in all things, for never sweet is the food, and never gladdening is the drink, of servitude.

"Sometimes I suspected that that your kindness might be troubled about me; but I said to myself, 'that will pass away, and the solid thing the fact will remain. She longed for this particular thing. She shall have it. And if the truth is as she supposes it, why not? there are good men and keen brains with her what has been done will go on gladdening and satisfying her year by year.

All at once, as with a sudden smile of heaven, forth burst the sunshine, pouring a very flood into the obscure forest, gladdening each green leaf, transmuting the yellow fallen ones to gold, and gleaming adown the gray trunks of the solemn trees. The objects that had made a shadow hitherto, embodied the brightness now.

She had swept it all clean, carefully removing all unsightly objects, and strewing it over with fresh cedar sprigs, which gave out a pleasant odour and formed a smooth and not unseemly carpet for their little dwelling. How cheerful was the first fire blazing up on their own hearth! It was so pleasant to sit by its gladdening light, and chat away of all they had done and all that they meant to do!

In this happy condition of things, winter had come and passed away, and spring, with its fresh green shoots and its blue sky, was gladdening the joyous inmates of the castle. Spring was in harmony with them, and they with spring. What wonder then, that its storks and swallows inspired them also with a desire to travel?

But in their hearts both men knew that the savage wild, ingrained in their natures, would not always be so easily stifled. Unless they parted, a dire calamity must surely befall. The forest gloom is broken by gladdening beams of sunlight. They sketch a mazy fretwork pattern of light and shade on the dank underlay of rotting vegetation which the melting snow has laid bare.

All at once, as with a sudden smile of heaven, forth burst the sunshine, pouring a very flood into the obscure forest, gladdening each green leaf, transmuting the yellow fallen ones to gold, and gleaming adown the gray trunks of the solemn trees. The objects that had made a shadow hitherto, embodied the brightness now.

I had never felt so supremely happy, so buoyant with hope and joy. The flowers of Ernest, the pearls of Edith, came to me with a message as gladdening as that which waked the silver harp-strings of the morning stars. I did not, I dared not misunderstand the meaning of the first.

We think, and think on, calling this and that memory up from the grave of forgetfulness, until all the past seems present, and we live over the bliss of boyhood with a mimic ecstasy of young life and its gladdening joys.