When life went so like a dreamy rhyme,
That it seems to me now that then
The world was having a jollier time
Than it ever will have again.


The crude production is received, I am glad to
note, with some expressions of favor from the company
though Bob, of course, must heartlessly dissipate
my weak delight by saying, "Well, it's certainly
bad enough; though," he goes on with an air
of deepest critical sagacity and fairness, "considered,
as it should be, justly, as the production of a
jour.-poet, why, it might be worse--that is, a little
worse."

"Probably," I remember saying,--"probably I
might redeem myself by reading you this little
amateurish bit of verse, enclosed to me in a letter by
mistake, not very long ago." I here fish an envelope
from my pocket, the address of which all recognize
as in Bob's almost printed writing. He smiles
vacantly at it--then vividly colors.

"What date?" he stoically asks.

"The date," I suggestively answer, "of your last
letter to our dear Doc, at boarding-school, two days
exactly in advance of her coming home--this veritable
visit now."