212 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 



couch, faint stars still glimmered in the 

 quiet night. 



Midnight was not long past, however, 

 before a steady pattering on the maple 

 leaves outside the window recalled me 

 from the land of No-whither into which I 

 had sunk. Had I but learned to &quot;dream 

 true,&quot; I think that I should not have re 

 turned so easily, even upon so pleasant a 

 call. But alas ! I have not yet acquired 

 that faculty, though I mean to do so one 

 of these days. As it was, the sound was 

 balm to my spirit, and I lay for a long time 

 listening to the pleasant dropping, and 

 grudging to fall asleep again lest I should 

 waste a pleasant opportunity, and some 

 how, by carelessness, bring the shower to 

 an end. And so I continued waking and 

 sleeping, waking and sleeping, through the 

 night, keeping watch and ward over the 

 elements, and congratulating myself in an 

 incoherent way that the liquid chain did 

 not break. 



The rain continued pretty steadily until 

 the middle of the morning, when occasional 

 flashes of lightning and rumbling of dis 

 tant thunder told us that we had to do 

 with an electric storm, and not with a full- 

 grown north-easter. And then the last 



