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20 and people, but, as I remember, you were of a choleric temper.”

“And am so still!”

“Well, and do you not sometimes, by flashes of that, lose all you may have gained?”

“It does not often now,” he replied, “find open way. My Master has been very good to me in suggestions of restraining prayer, which come into my mind at the hour of temptation.”

Lord H.—Why do you not say, rather, that your own discerning mind and maturer will show you more and more the folly and wrong of such outbreaks.

George H.—Because that would not be saying all that I think. At such times I feel a higher power interposed, as much as I see that yonder tree is distinct from myself. Shall I repeat to you some poor verses in which I have told, by means of various likenesses, in an imperfect fashion, how it is with me in this matter?

Lord H.—Do so! I shall hear them gladly; for I, like you, though with less time and learning to perfect it, love the deliberate composition of the closet, and believe we can better understand one another by thoughts expressed so, than in the more glowing but hasty words of the moment.

George H.—