CHAPTER XXVII.
PHILOSOPHICAL.
We left our friend Verty slowly going onward toward the western hills, under the golden autumn sunset, with drooping head and listless arms, thinking of Redbud and the events of the day, which now was going to its death in royal purple over the far horizon.
One thought, one image only dwelt in the young man's mind, and what that thought was, his tell-tale lips clearly revealed:--"Redbud! Redbud!" they murmured; and the dreamer seemed to be wholly dead to that splendid scene around him, dreaming of his love.
There are those who speak slightingly of boyhood and its feelings, scoffing at the early yearnings of the heart, and finding only food for jest in those innocent and childish raptures and regrets.

We do not envy such.

That man's heart must be made of doubtful stuff, who jeers at the fresh dreams of youth; or rather, he must have no heart at all--above all, no sweet and affecting recollections.

There is something touching in the very idea of this pure and unselfish emotion, which the hardened nature of the grown-up man can never feel again.

Men often dream about their childhood, and shed unavailing tears as they gaze in fancy on their own youthful faces, and with the pencil of imagination slowly trace the old forms and images.
Said a writer of our acquaintance, no matter who, since no one read or thought of him:--"The writer of these idle lines finds no difficulty in painting for himself a Titian picture, in which, as in his life-picture, his own figure lies on the canvas.