has no more right among us miserable creatures than the child
unborn. He never was miserable and probably never will be!"

"Our honored guests," interposed the stewards, "pray have patience
with us, and believe, at least, that our deep veneration for the
sacredness of this solemnity would preclude any wilful violation of
it. Receive this young man to your table. It may not be too much
to say, that no guest here would exchange his own heart for the one
that beats within that youthful bosom!"

"I'd call it a bargain, and gladly, too," muttered Mr. Smith, with a
perplexing mixture of sadness and mirthful conceit. "A plague upon
their nonsense! My own heart is the only really miserable one in
the company; it will certainly be the death of me at last!"

Nevertheless, as on the former occasion, the judgment of the
stewards being without appeal, the company sat down. The obnoxious
guest made no more attempt to obtrude his conversation on those
about him, but appeared to listen to the table-talk with peculiar
assiduity, as if some inestimable secret, otherwise beyond his
reach, might be conveyed in a casual word. And in truth, to those
who could understand and value it, there was rich matter in the
upgushings and outpourings of these initiated souls to whom sorrow
had been a talisman, admitting them into spiritual depths which no
other spell can open. Sometimes out of the midst of densest gloom
there flashed a momentary radiance, pure as crystal, bright as the
flame of stars, and shedding such a glow upon the mysteries of life,
that the guests were ready to exclaim, "Surely the riddle is on the
point of being solved!" At such illuminated intervals the saddest
mourners felt it to be revealed that mortal griefs are but shadowy