LAURA WINTHROP JOHNSON.
A MEETING AT SEA.
It seems like a long, long while ago since Uncle Joseph told it to me
as a recollection of his youthful days; and as Uncle Joseph was then
no longer young, it must have been long, long ago that it happened. It
was dull work sitting day after day on the hard benches and listening
to lectures on therapeutics and anatomy which I had already heard
twice _verbatim_--for I was a third-course student--and it was
scarcely more entertaining to sit alone in my cozy little chamber and
pore over the dry details of my medical textbooks. How often would my
gaze wander through the attic-window to rest upon the broad blue bosom
of the Ashley, and watch the course of the rippling current which
flashed and glistened in the October sunlight! It was very hard to fix
my mind upon the contra-indications of calomel and the bromides while
the snowy gulls were circling gracefully over the gliding waters, and
the noisy crows were leading my thoughts across the stream to the
island thickets where I knew the wild-deer lay. I remember how I used
to interpret their cawing into mocking laughter because I had no wings
to follow them into those shady fastnessess, which were filled by my
hunter's fancy with all kinds of temptations to manly sport.
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