heart, and those little feet walking every day into your affections. I
shall leave you, before the affair has ripened into any overtures, and
while there is only a sixpence split in halves, and tied about your neck
and Maggie's neck, to bind your destinies together.

If I even hinted at any probability of your marrying her, or of your not
marrying her, you would be very likely to dispute me. One knows his own
feelings, or thinks he does, so much better than any one can tell him.




IV.

_A Friend made and Friend lost._


To visit, is a great thing in the boy calendar;--not to visit this or
that neighbor,--to drink tea, or eat strawberries, or play at
draughts,--but to go away on a visit in a coach, with a trunk, and a
great-coat, and an umbrella--this is large!

It makes no difference that they wish to be rid of your noise, now that
Charlie is sick of a fever: the reason is not at all in the way of your
pride of visiting. You are to have a long ride in a coach, and eat a
dinner at a tavern, and to see a new town almost as large as the one you
live in; and you are to make new acquaintances. In short, you are to see
the world: a very proud thing it is to see the world!

As you journey on, after bidding your friends adieu, and as you see