CHAPTER II. 



i 



UNDER THE APPLE BOUGHS. 



FOR weeks past I have been conscious of some 

 mystery in the air ; there have been fleeting signs 

 of secret communication between earth and sky, as 

 if the hidden powers were in friendly league and 

 some great concerted movement were on foot. 

 There have been soft lights playing upon the ten 

 der grass on the lawn, and caressing those deli 

 cate hues through which each individual tree and 

 shrub searches for its summer foliage ; the morn- 

 ings have slipped so quietly in through the eastern 

 gates, and the afternoons have vanished so softly 

 across the western hills, that one could not but sus 

 pect a plot to avert attention and lull watchful eyes 

 into negligence while all things were made ready 

 for the moment of revelation. At times a subdued 

 light has filled the broad arch of heaven, and, later, 

 a fringe of rain has moved gently across the low 

 hills and fallow fields, rippling like a wave from 

 that upper sea which hangs invisible in golden 

 weather, but becomes portentous and vast as the 

 nether seas when the clouds gather and the celes 

 tial watercourses are unlocked. One day I thought 

 I saw signs of a falling out between the conspira- 



