BIRCH BROWSINGS. 243 



began to hear human sounds. One rod 

 more, and we were out of the woods. It 

 took us a moment to comprehend the scene. 

 Things looked very strange at first, but 

 quickly they began to change and to put on 

 familiar features. Some magic scene-shift- 

 ing seemed to take place before my eyes, 

 till, instead of the unknown settlement 

 which I at first seemed to look upon, there 

 stood the farmhouse at which we had 

 stopped two days before, and at the same 

 moment we heard the stamping of our team 

 in the barn. We sat down and laughed 

 heartily over our good luck. Our desperate 

 venture had resulted better than we had 

 dared to hope, and had shamed our wisest 

 plans. At the house our arrival had been 

 anticipated about this time, and dinner was 

 being put upon the table. 



It was then five o'clock, so that we had 

 been in the woods just forty-eight hours ; 

 but if time is only phenomenal, as the phi- 

 losophers say, and life only in feeling, as the 

 poets aver, we were some months, if not 

 years, older at that moment than we had 

 been two days before. Yet younger too, 

 though this be a paradox, for the birches 

 had infused into us some of their own sup- 

 pleness and strength. 



