So the old gentleman's wife may appropriate the 'silken pride,' while we emulate the shepherd.
'His lambs' warm fleece well fits his little need--' I wear a tolerably good coat now, don't I, Phineas ?" "You are incorrigible." Yet, through all his fun, I detected a certain under-tone of seriousness, observable in him ever since my father's declaration of his intentions concerning him, had, so to speak, settled John's future career.

He seemed aware of some crisis in his life, arrived or impending, which disturbed the generally even balance of his temperament.
"Nay, I'll be serious;" and passing over the unfinished verse, with another or two following, he began afresh, in a new place, and in an altogether changed tone.
"'His certain life, that never can deceive him, Is full of thousand sweets and rich content; The smooth-leaved beeches in the field receive him With coolest shades till noon-tide's rage is spent; His life is neither tost on boisterous seas Of troublous worlds, nor lost in slothful ease.
Pleased and full blest he lives, when he his God can please.
'His bed of wool yields safe and quiet sleeps, While by his side his faithful spouse hath place; His little son into his bosom creeps, The lively image of his father's face; Never his humble house or state torment him, Less he could like, if less his God had sent him; And when he dies, green turfs with grassy tomb content him.'" John ceased.

He was a good reader--but I had never heard him read like this before.

Ending, one missed it like the breaking of music, or like the inner voice of one's own heart talking when nobody is by.
"David," I said, after a pause, "what are you thinking about ?" He started, with his old quick blush--"Oh, nothing--No, that's not quite true.

I was thinking that, so far as happiness goes, this 'shepherd's' is my ideal of a happy life--ay, down to the 'grassy tomb.'" "Your fancy leaps at once to the grassy tomb; but the shepherd enjoyed a few intermediate stages of felicity before that." "I was thinking of those likewise." "Then you do intend some day to have a 'faithful spouse and a little son' ?" "I hope so--God willing." It may seem strange, but this was the first time our conversation had ever wandered in a similar direction.