“And to-morrow morning it will be robins or swallows ‘twittering’ under the eaves. What a great, grand thing it is to live and be happy! Rose, if people could realize the satisfying joy they put in the lives of others when they share their pleasures I think the whole world would go at it. It would be giving and receiving all round the wide earth.”
Are we thankful enough for happiness, I wonder? For that is something a little apart from life, one of the things not surely promised, like the peace of God. Should there not be a special thanksgiving for every blessed day, for the breath of fragrance, the pleasantness of sunshine, and the subtle essence of delight that wafts itself across our sky—tender human love?
CHAPTER XVI.
Stephen Duncan had taken the boys West, and would be gone a month or more. They had grown so much, Mrs. Whitcomb said, and were almost men.
“Which do you like best?” asked Fan.
“I think Louis will make the nobler character. Stuart would rather take life just as it is, picking out the best for himself, to be sure, and not minding much what scraps fall to other people. He may feed the hungry after he is satisfied, he never will before.”
“Everybody likes him,” I replied.
“Yes. He is fascinating.”
“And you don’t need real virtues to be fascinated with,” I said rather blunderingly, the thought being more than the sentence.