with the selfsame impulse and abandon in every
syllable; and its melody--however sweet the other
--is far more sweet to me. And here are other
letters like it--three--five--and seven, at least. Bob
wrote them from the front, and Billy kept them
for me when I went to join him. Dear boy! Dear
boy!

Here are some cards of bristol-board. Ah! when
Bob came to these there were no blotches then.
What faces--what expressions! The droll, ridiculous,
good-for-nothing genius, with his "sad mouth,"
as he called it, "upside down," laughing always--
at everything, at big rallies, and mass-meetings and
conventions, county fairs, and floral halls, booths,
watermelon-wagons, dancing-tents, the swing, the
Daguerrean-car, the "lung-barometer," and the air-
gun man. Oh! what a gifted, good-for-nothing boy
Bob was in those old days! And here's a picture
of a girlish face--a very faded photograph--even
fresh from "the gallery," five and twenty years ago,
it was a faded thing. But the living face--how
bright and clear that was!--for "Doc," Bob's awful
name for her, was a pretty girl, and brilliant, clever,
lovable every way. No wonder Bob fancied her!
And you could see some hint of her jaunty loveliness
in every fairy face he drew, and you could
find her happy ways and dainty tastes unconsciously
assumed in all he did--the books he read--the
poems he admired, and those he wrote; and, ringing