What a glow there is to the sun! What warmth—yet it does not oppress you: what coolness—yet it is not too cool. The birds sing sweetly; you catch yourself watching to see what new songsters they can be: they are only the old robins and thrushes, yet what a new melody is in their throats!

The clouds hang gorgeous shapes upon the sky,—shapes they could hardly ever have fashioned before. The grass was never so green, the buttercups were never so plentiful; there was never such a life in the leaves. It seems as if the joyousness in you gave a throb to nature that made every green thing buoyant.

Faces, too, are changed: men look pleasantly; children are all charming children; even babies look tender and lovable. The street-beggar at your door is suddenly grown into a Belisarius, and is one of the most deserving heroes of modern times. Your mind is in a continued ferment; you glide through your toil—dashing out sparkles of passion—like a ship in the sea. No difficulty daunts you: there is a kind of buoyancy in your soul that rocks over danger or doubt, as sea-waves heave calmly and smoothly over sunken rocks.

You grow unusually amiable and kind; you are earnest in your search of friends; you shake hands with your office-boy as if he were your second cousin. You joke cheerfully with the stout washerwoman, and give her a shilling over-change, and insist upon her keeping it, and grow quite merry at the recollection of it. You tap your hackman on the shoulder very familiarly, and tell him he is a capital fellow; and don't allow him to whip his horses, except when driving to the post-office. You even ask him to take a glass of beer with you upon some chilly evening. You drink to the health of his wife. He says he has no wife; whereupon you think him a very miserable man, and give him a dollar by way of consolation.

You think all the editorials in the morning papers are remarkably well written,—whether upon your side, or upon the other. You think the stock-market has a very cheerful look, even with Erie—of which you are a large holder—down to seventy-five. You wonder why you never admired Mrs. Hemans before, or Stoddard, or any of the rest.

You give a pleasant twirl to your fingers as you saunter along the street, and say,—but not so loud as to be overheard,—"She is mine; she is mine!"

You wonder if Frank ever loved Nelly one half as well as you love Madge. You feel quite sure he never did. You can hardly conceive how it is that Madge has not been seized before now by scores of enamored men, and borne off, like the Sabine women in Roman history. You chuckle over your future, like a boy who has found a guinea in groping for sixpences. You read over the marriage service,—thinking of the time when you will take her hand, and slip the ring upon her finger,—and repeat, after the clergyman, "for richer—for poorer; for better—for worse!" A great deal of "worse" there will be about it, you think!

Through all, your heart cleaves to that sweet image of the beloved Madge, as light cleaves to day. The weeks leap with a bound; and the months only grow long when you approach that day which is to make her yours. There are no flowers rare enough to make bouquets for her; diamonds are too dim for her to wear; pearls are tame.

----And after marriage the weeks are even shorter than before: you wonder why on earth all the single men in the world do not rush tumultuously to the Altar; you look upon them all as a travelled man will look upon some conceited Dutch boor who has never been beyond the limits of his cabbage-garden. Married men, on the contrary, you regard as fellow-voyagers; and look upon their wives—ugly as they may be—as better than none.

You blush a little at first telling your butcher what "your wife" would like; you bargain with the grocer for sugars and teas, and wonder if he knows that you are a married man. You practise your new way of talk upon your office-boy: you tell him that "your wife" expects you home to dinner; and are astonished that he does not stare to hear you say it!

You wonder if the people in the omnibus know that Madge and you are just married; and if the driver knows that the shilling you hand to him is for "self and wife." You wonder if anybody was ever so happy before, or ever will be so happy again.

You enter your name upon the hotel books as "Clarence —— and Wife"; and come back to look at it, wondering if anybody else has noticed it,—and thinking that it looks remarkably well. You cannot help thinking that every third man you meet in the hall wishes he possessed your wife; nor do you think it very sinful in him to wish it. You fear it is placing temptation in the way of covetous men to put Madge's little gaiters outside the chamber-door at night.

Your home, when it is entered, is just what it should be,—quiet, small,—with everything she wishes, and nothing more than she wishes. The sun strikes it in the happiest possible way; the piano is the sweetest-toned in the world; the library is stocked to a charm;—and Madge, that blessed wife, is there, adorning and giving life to it all. To think even of her possible death is a suffering you class with the infernal tortures of the Inquisition. You grow twin of heart and of purpose. Smiles seem made for marriage; and you wonder how you ever wore them before!

So a year and more wears off of mingled home-life, visiting, and travel. A new hope and joy lightens home: there is a child there.

----What a joy to be a father! What new emotions crowd the eye with tears, and make the hand tremble! What a benevolence radiates from you toward the nurse,—toward the physician,—toward everybody! What a holiness and sanctity of love grows upon your old devotion to that wife of your bosom—the mother of your child!

The excess of joy seems almost to blur the stories of happiness which attach to heaven. You are now joined, as you were never joined before, to the great family of man. Your name and blood will live after you; nor do you once think (what father can?) but that it will live honorably and well.

With what a new air you walk the streets! With what a triumph you speak, in your letter to Nelly, of "your family!" Who, that has not felt it, knows what it is to be "a man of family!"

How weak now seem all the imaginations of your single life; what bare, dry skeletons of the reality they furnished! You pity the poor fellows who have no wives or children—from your soul; you count their smiles as empty smiles, put on to cover the lack that is in them. There is a freemasonry among fathers that they know nothing of. You compassionate them deeply; you think them worthy objects of some charitable association; you would cheerfully buy tracts for them, if they would but read them,—tracts on marriage and children.

----And then "the boy,"—such a boy!

There was a time when you thought all babies very much alike;—alike? Is your boy like anything, except the wonderful fellow that he is? Was there ever a baby seen, or even read of, like that baby!

----Look at him: pick him up in his long, white gown: he may have an excess of color,—but such a pretty color! he is a little pouty about the mouth,—but such a mouth! His hair is a little scant, and he is rather wandering in the eye,—but, Good Heavens, what an eye!

There was a time when you thought it very absurd for fathers to talk about their children; but it does not seem at all absurd now. You think, on the contrary, that your old friends, who used to sup with you at the club, would be delighted to know how your baby is getting on, and how much he measures around the calf of the leg! If they pay you a visit, you are quite sure they are in an agony to see Frank; and you hold the little squirming fellow in your arms, half conscience-smitten for provoking them to such envy as they must be suffering. You make a settlement upon the boy with a chuckle,—as if you were treating yourself to a mint-julep, instead of conveying away a few thousands of seven per cents.

----Then the boy develops astonishingly. What a head,—what a foot,—what a voice! And he is so quiet withal,—never known to cry, except under such provocation as would draw tears from a heart of adamant; in short, for the first six months he is never anything but gentle, patient, earnest, loving, intellectual, and magnanimous. You are half afraid that some of the physicians will be reporting the case, as one of the most remarkable instances of perfect moral and physical development on record.

But the years roll on, in the which your extravagant fancies die into the earnest maturity of a father's love. You struggle gayly with the cares that life brings to your door. You feel the strength of three beings in your single arm; and feel your heart warming toward God and man with the added warmth of two other loving and trustful beings.

How eagerly you watch the first tottering step of that boy; how you riot in the joy and pride that swell in that mother's eyes, as they follow his feeble, staggering motions! Can God bless his creatures more than he has blessed that dear Madge and you? Has Heaven even richer joys than live in that home of yours?

By-and-by he speaks; and minds tie together by language, as the hearts have long tied by looks. He wanders with you feebly, and with slow, wandering paces, upon the verge of the great universe of thought. His little eye sparkles with some vague fancy that comes upon him first by language. Madge teaches him the words of affection and of thankfulness; and she teaches him to lisp infant prayer; and by secret pains (how could she be so secret?) instructs him in some little phrase of endearment that she knows will touch your heart; and then she watches your coming; and the little fellow runs toward you, and warbles out his lesson of love in tones that forbid you any answer,—save only those brimming eyes, turned first on her, and then on him,—and poorly concealed by the quick embrace, and the kisses which you shower in transport! Still slip on the years, like brimming bowls of nectar! Another Madge is sister to Frank; and a little Nelly is younger sister to this other Madge.

----Three of them! a charmed and mystic number, which, if it be broken in these young days,—as, alas, it may be!—will only yield a cherub angel to float over you, and to float over them,—to wean you, and to wean them, from this world, where all joys do perish, to that seraph world where joys do last forever.