"The root of bitterness," said I, "is removed at last, and I can only wonder at my own stupidity in not thinking of the simple remedy before—but Heaven forgive me! I had entirely forgotten your headache: the sound of that file must have been torture to you!"
She smiled sweetly as she leaned her head on my shoulder, declaring—although her forehead burnt my hand, and the blood was raging through her veins, that it was "quite cured, since the door shut so easily!!" Uncomplaining, devoted, self-sacrificing treasure of my heart! How could I do less than clasp her to my bosom and swear to cherish her with tenfold care, and pray—while I kissed away the tear from her eye—that my own cruel thoughtlessness might never fill its place with another.
Such pleasure was too rare and valuable to be interrupted at the moment of its birth—so I look my arm chair from the corner, and sitting down at the side of Julia, who, while she held my hand, looked me in the face with very much of that expression of innocent delight, which so rarely survives childhood. I pursued my cogitations somewhat in the following order. "Life is made up of moments. Our happiness or unhappiness during any one of these moments depends almost invariably upon the merest trifles. If these momentary trifles are in the scale of happiness, life is happy. Take care then of trifles, and great events will take care of themselves. (Somewhere about here I began to think aloud!) I lost a grandfather—an amiable, excellent, and most affectionate grandfather—and my grief was great. Nevertheless, I do believe that if the hard bottomed chair, [N. B. It was of white oak.] in which I have sat for the last eight—yes! nine years—if this chair had but been well covered with a good, soft sheepskin—that sheepskin—purchased at the cost of ninepence,—would have saved me from a greater grief than the death of my grandfather!"
"It is a mortifying reflection," said Julia, interrupting my soliloquy, "and one which at first thought would seem to speak little for your heart—yet a true one perhaps; and not more true with you than with many others."
"And still," said I, "I am without the sheepskin. Why? Because the pain endured in a single moment is so trifling that if we do not take the trouble to add all the moments together and look at the pain in the aggregate, one would hardly turn his hand upside down to be freed from it."
"But why not purchase the sheepskin, now that you have added the moments together?" said she.
"After all my reflection I should never have thought of that but for you. But a sheepskin! It will never do! A green velvet cushion may answer instead; and as the old one in your rocking chair seems to be somewhat worn I must even buy another for you."
"Oh! green velvet by all means!" said she. "It will correspond so well with the carpet and the new hearth rug which you promised me a month since. That was to have green for its border, you know."
I could not withstand the hint, and brought in the rug with the cushions that evening—and, to one who has ever seen my wife, I need not say that the smile that lit up her face and beamed from her eye was worth the price of a thousand.
G.