old song.

"Ah," said the gay damsel, "you might as well ask where the summer
wind is going. We are wanderers here, and there, and everywhere.
Wherever there is mirth, our merry hearts are drawn to it. To-day,
indeed, the people have told us of a great frolic and festival in
these parts; so perhaps we may be needed at what you call the camp-
meeting at Stamford."

Then in my happy youth, and while her pleasant voice yet sounded in my
ears, I sighed; for none but myself, I thought, should have been her
companion in a life which seemed to realize my own wild fancies,
cherished all through visionary boyhood to that hour. To these two
strangers the world was in its golden age, not that indeed it was less
dark and sad than ever, but because its weariness and sorrow had no
community with their ethereal nature. Wherever they might appear in
their pilgrimage of bliss, Youth would echo back their gladness, care-
stricken Maturity would rest a moment from its toil, and Age,
tottering among the graves, would smile in withered joy for their
sakes. The lonely cot, the narrow and gloomy street, the sombre
shade, would catch a passing gleam like that now shining on ourselves,
as these bright spirits wandered by. Blessed pair, whose happy home
was throughout all the earth! I looked at my shoulders, and thought
them broad enough to sustain those pictured towns and mountains; mine,
too, was an elastic foot, as tireless as the wing of the bird of
paradise; mine was then an untroubled heart, that would have gone
singing on its delightful way.

"O maiden!" said I aloud, "why did you not come hither alone?"