But though first love’s impassioned blindness
     Has passed away in colder light,
     I still have thought of you with kindness,
     And shall do, till our last good-night
     The ever-rolling silent hours
     Will bring a time we shall not know,
     When our young days of gathering flowers
     Will be a hundred years ago.

HALF AN HOUR BEFORE SUPPER.

BY BRET HARTE.

“So she’s here, your unknown Dulcinea—­the lady you met on the train,
And you really believe she would know you if you were to meet her
     again?”

“Of course,” he replied, “she would know me; there was never
     womankind yet
Forgot the effect she inspired.  She excuses, but does not forget.”

“Then you told her your love?” asked the elder; while the younger
     looked up with a smile: 
“I sat by her side half an hour—­what else was I doing the while?

“What, sit by the side of a woman as fair as the sun in the sky,
And look somewhere else lest the dazzle flash back from your own to
     her eye?

“No, I hold that the speech of the tongue be as frank and as bold as
     the look,
And I held up myself to herself—­that was more than she got from her
     book.”

“Young blood!” laughed the elder; “no doubt you are voicing the mode
     of to-day: 
But then we old fogies at least gave the lady some chance for delay.

“There’s my wife—­(you must know)—­we first met on the journey from
     Florence to Rome;
It took me three weeks to discover who was she, and where was her
     home;

“Three more to be duly presented; three more ere I saw her again;
And a year ere my romance began where yours ended that day on the
     train.”

“Oh, that was the style of the stage-coach; we travel to-day by
     express;
Forty miles to the hour,” he answered, “won’t admit of a passion
     that’s less.”

“But what if you make a mistake?” quoth the elder.  The younger half
     sighed. 
“What happens when signals are wrong or switches misplaced?” he
     replied.

“Very well, I must bow to your wisdom,” the elder returned, “but
     submit
Your chances of winning this woman your boldness has bettered no
     whit.

“Why, you do not at best know her name.  And what if I try your ideal
With something, if not quite so fair, at least more en regle and
     real?

“Let me find you a partner.  Nay, come, I insist—­you shall
     follow—­this way. 
My dear, will you not add your grace to entreat Mr. Rapid to stay?

“My wife, Mr. Rapid—­Eh, what?  Why, he’s gone—­yet he said he would
     come. 
How rude!  I don’t wonder, my dear, you are properly crimson and
     dumb?”

HE WORRIED ABOUT IT.