Number Seven was quite excited about the matter.  He had himself drawn up a plan for a new social arrangement.  He had shown it to the legal gentleman who has lately joined us.  This gentleman thought it well-intended, but that it would take one constable to every three inhabitants to enforce its provisions.

I said the dream could do no harm; it was too outrageously improbable to come home to anybody’s feelings.  Dreams were like broken mosaics,—­the separated stones might here and there make parts of pictures.  If one found a caricature of himself made out of the pieces which had accidentally come together, he would smile at it, knowing that it was an accidental effect with no malice in it.  If any of you really believe in a working Utopia, why not join the Shakers, and convert the world to this mode of life?  Celibacy alone would cure a great many of the evils you complain of.

I thought this suggestion seemed to act rather unfavorably upon the ladies of our circle.  The two Annexes looked inquiringly at each other.  Number Five looked smilingly at them.  She evidently thought it was time to change the subject of conversation, for she turned to me and said, “You promised to read us the poem you read before your old classmates the other evening.”

I will fulfill my promise, I said.  We felt that this might probably be our last meeting as a Class.  The personal reference is to our greatly beloved and honored classmate, James Freeman Clarke.

   After the Curfew.

   The Play is over.  While the light
   Yet lingers in the darkening hall,

   I come to say a last Good-night
   Before the final Exeunt all.

We gathered once, a joyous throng:  The jovial toasts went gayly round; With jest, and laugh, and shout, and song we made the floors and walls resound.

   We come with feeble steps and slow,
   A little band of four or five,
   Left from the wrecks of long ago,
   Still pleased to find ourselves alive.

Alive!  How living, too, are they whose memories it is ours to share!  Spread the long table’s full array, There sits a ghost in every chair!

One breathing form no more, alas!  Amid our slender group we see; With him we still remained “The Class,” without his presence what are we?

   The hand we ever loved to clasp,
   That tireless hand which knew no rest,
   Loosed from affection’s clinging grasp,
   Lies nerveless on the peaceful breast.

The beaming eye, the cheering voice, That lent to life a generous glow, whose every meaning said “Rejoice,” we see, we hear, no more below.

   The air seems darkened by his loss,
   Earth’s shadowed features look less fair,
   And heavier weighs the daily cross
   His willing shoulders helped as bear.

   Why mourn that we, the favored few