I have to thank you for a thousand courtesies, and above all for the patience and indulgence with which you have listened to me when I have tried to instruct or amuse you.

My friend the Professor (who, as well as my friend the Poet, is unavoidably absent on this interesting occasion) has given me reason to suppose that he would occupy my empty chair about the first of January next.

If he comes among you, be kind to him, as you have been to me.

May the Lord bless you all!--And we shook hands all round the table.
Half an hour afterwards the breakfast things and the cloth were gone.

I looked up and down the length of the bare boards over which I had so often uttered my sentiments and experiences--and -- Yes, I am a man, like another.
All sadness vanished, as, in the midst of these old friends of mine, whom you know, and others a little more up in the world, perhaps, to whom I have not introduced you, I took the schoolmistress before the altar from the hands of the old gentleman who used to sit opposite, and who would insist on giving her away.
And now we two are walking the long path in peace together.