40 Clear Skies and Cloudy. 



ling rivulet that has worn its winding way 

 through the meadows to the river, where it adds 

 its mite to the greater stream and is lost in the 

 ocean at last. We need not trace it throughout 

 so long a journey. Here it is the prattling in- 

 fant rather than a staid old man, an artless child 

 rather than a cunning adult, a rivulet, born of 

 the spring that lives in some underground re- 

 cess, and he who loves an outing cannot see 

 and hear it unimpressed. As I see it now, this 

 laughing brook looks up for a moment at the 

 blazing sun and then darts behind the ice-bound 

 masses of old leaves that have lodged by its 

 way ; then, turning and twisting among the airy 

 roots of an old elm, swirls about the domed 

 house of a musk-rat, and then in and out among 

 the hassocks of the open meadow. It is silent 

 at one point, tuneful at another, but never sober 

 and downcast. Its lively spirit moves or ought 

 to move you. Its presence alone means beauty 

 and joy, and means even more now and here, at 

 this passing moment, when many a bird is sing- 

 ing its praises and the winter bells are ringing. 



The sunny day is waxing old apace. An 

 envious shadow is creeping hitherward, and al- 



