The nurse had a part in the joy, for she lifted the baby out of the perambulator and showed proudly how much he had grown.
It was a dear little scene, and I, a passer-by, had shared in it and felt better for it.

I think their content was no less because part of it had enriched my life, for happiness, like mercy, is twice blessed; it blesses those who are most intimately associated in it, and it blesses all those who see it, hear it, feel it, touch it, or breathe the same atmosphere.

A laughing, crowing baby in a house, one cheerful woman singing about her work, a boy whistling at the plough, a romance just suspected, with its miracle of two hearts melting into one--the wind's always in the west when you have any of these wonder-workers in your neighbourhood.
I have talks too, sometimes, with the old parson, who lives in a quaint house with "_Parva Domus Magna Quies_" cut into the stone over the doorway.

He is not a preaching parson, but a retired one, almost the nicest kind, I often think.
He has been married thirty years, he tells me; thirty years, spent in the one little house with the bricks painted red and grey alternately, and the scarlet holly-hocks growing under the windows.

I am sure they have been sweet, true, kind years, and that his heart must be a quiet, peaceful place just like his house and garden.
"I was only eleven years old when I fell in love with my wife," he told me as we sat on the seat under the lime-tree; he puffing cosily at his pipe, I plaiting grasses for a hatband.
{Puffing cosily at his pipe: p77.jpg} "It was just before Sunday-school.