On the surface, everything about us just now looks prosaic and mechanical; you see only a sort of bark-mill grinding over of the same dull, monotonous grist of daily trifles.

But underneath all this there is an earnest life, rich and beautiful with love and hope, or dark with hatred, and sorrow, and remorse.

That fisherman by the riverside, or that woman at the stream below, with her wash-tub,--who knows what lights and shadows checker their memories, or what present thoughts of theirs, born of heaven or hell, the future shall ripen into deeds of good or evil?
Ah, what have I not seen and heard?
My profession has been to me, in some sort, like the vial genie of the Salamanca student; it has unroofed these houses, and opened deep, dark chambers to the hearts of their tenants, which no eye save that of God had ever looked upon.

Where I least expected them, I have encountered shapes of evil; while, on the other hand, I have found beautiful, heroic love and self-denial in those who had seemed to me frivolous and selfish." So would Dr.Singletary discourse as we strolled over Blueberry Hill, or drove along the narrow willow-shaded road which follows the windings of the river.

He had read and thought much in his retired, solitary life, and was evidently well satisfied to find in me a gratified listener.