contentedly, and gratefully, as my brothers are ending theirs, in
the solitude of The Glen Tower.

How many years have passed since we have all three been united it
is not necessary to relate. It will be more to the purpose if I
briefly record that we have never been separated since the day
which first saw us assembled together in our hillside retreat;
that we have never yet wearied of the time, of the place, or of
ourselves; and that the influence of solitude on our hearts and
minds has not altered them for the worse, for it has not
embittered us toward our fellow-creatures, and it has not dried
up in us the sources from which harmless occupations and innocent
pleasures may flow refreshingly to the last over the waste places
of human life. Thus much for our own story, and for the
circumstances which have withdrawn us from the world for the rest
of our days.

And now imagine us three lonely old men, tall and lean, and
white-headed; dressed, more from past habit than from present
association, in customary suits of solemn black: Brother Owen,
yielding, gentle, and affectionate in look, voice, and manner;
brother Morgan, with a quaint, surface-sourness of address, and a
tone of dry sarcasm in his talk, which single him out, on all
occasions, as a character in our little circle; brother Griffith
forming the link between his two elder companions, capable, at
one time, of sympathizing with the quiet, thoughtful tone of
Owen's conversation, and ready, at another, to exchange brisk
severities on life and manners with Morgan--in short, a pliable,
double-sided old lawyer, who stands between the clergyman-brother
and the physician-brother with an ear ready for each, and with a