It may be that my affection for the one in question biases my judgment in its favor; I cannot say as to that.

No matter, it was satisfyingly beautiful to me, and it had this advantage over all the other friends whom I was about to greet again: it had suffered no change; it was as young and fresh and comely and gracious as ever it had been; whereas, the faces of the others would be old, and scarred with the campaigns of life, and marked with their griefs and defeats, and would give me no upliftings of spirit.
An old gentleman, out on an early morning walk, came along, and we discussed the weather, and then drifted into other matters.

I could not remember his face.

He said he had been living here twenty-eight years.
So he had come after my time, and I had never seen him before.

I asked him various questions; first about a mate of mine in Sunday school--what became of him?
'He graduated with honor in an Eastern college, wandered off into the world somewhere, succeeded at nothing, passed out of knowledge and memory years ago, and is supposed to have gone to the dogs.' 'He was bright, and promised well when he was a boy.' 'Yes, but the thing that happened is what became of it all.' I asked after another lad, altogether the brightest in our village school when I was a boy.
'He, too, was graduated with honors, from an Eastern college; but life whipped him in every battle, straight along, and he died in one of the Territories, years ago, a defeated man.' I asked after another of the bright boys.
'He is a success, always has been, always will be, I think.' I inquired after a young fellow who came to the town to study for one of the professions when I was a boy.
'He went at something else before he got through--went from medicine to law, or from law to medicine--then to some other new thing; went away for a year, came back with a young wife; fell to drinking, then to gambling behind the door; finally took his wife and two young children to her father's, and went off to Mexico; went from bad to worse, and finally died there, without a cent to buy a shroud, and without a friend to attend the funeral.' 'Pity, for he was the best-natured, and most cheery and hopeful young fellow that ever was.' I named another boy.
'Oh, he is all right.