"Why, he is there more than half the time," I replied.

Prue looked quietly at me and smiled. "I see it has done you good to
breathe the country air," said she. "Jane, get some of the blackberry
jam, and call Adoniram and the children."

So we went in to tea. We eat in the back parlor, for our little house
and limited means do not allow us to have things upon the Spanish
scale. It is better than a sermon to hear my wife Prue talk to the
children; and when she speaks to me it seems sweeter than psalm
singing; at least, such as we have in our church. I am very happy.

Yet I dream my dreams, and attend to my castles in Spain. I have so
much property there, that I could not, in conscience, neglect it. All
the years of my youth, and the hopes of my manhood, are stored away,
like precious stones, in the vaults; and I know that I shall find
everything convenient, elegant, and beautiful, when I come into
possession.

As the years go by, I am not conscious that my interest diminishes. If
I see that age is subtly sifting his snow in the dark hair of my Prue,
I smile, contented, for her hair, dark and heavy as when I first saw
it, is all carefully treasured in my castles in Spain. If I feel her
arm more heavily leaning upon mine, as we walk around the squares, I
press it closely to my side, for I know that the easy grace of her
youth's motion will be restored by the elixir of that Spanish air. If
her voice sometimes falls less clearly from her lips, it is no less
sweet to me for the music of her voice's prime fills, freshly as ever,
those Spanish halls. If the light I love fades a little from her eyes,
I know that the glances she gave me, in our youth, are the eternal