ground.

He stooped again, and caught at something; and again looked up in a
perplexed, half-wondering way.

"Why, Arty!" I exclaimed, catching him up in my arms. "It's only
your shadow! Foolish child!" And I ran back to Mrs. Mayflower, with
my baby-boy held close against my heart.

"After a shadow!" said I, shaking my head, a little soberly, as I
resigned Arty to his mother. "So life begins--and so it ends! Poor
Arty!"

Mrs. Mayflower laughed out right merrily.

"After a shadow! Why, darling!" And she kissed and hugged him in
overflowing tenderness.

"So life begins--so it ends," I repeated to myself, as I left the
house, and walked towards my store. "Always in pursuit of shadows!
We lose to-day's substantial good for shadowy phantoms that keep our
eyes ever in advance, and our feet ever hurrying forward. No
pause--no ease--no full enjoyment of _now_. O, deluded heart!--ever
bartering away substance for shadow!"

I grow philosophic sometimes. Thought will, now and then, take up a
passing incident, and extract the moral. But how little the wiser
are we for moralizing! we look into the mirror of truth, and see
ourselves--then turn away, and forget what manner of men we are.
Better for us if it were not so; if we remembered the image that