98 THE ADIRONDACK. 



lovely with its stars and sky, which seemed doubly 

 brilliant in contrast with the black mountain masses 

 that shut out half the heavens ; yet the dash of a 

 stream over its broken channel, and the hoot of the 

 distant owl conspired to give a loneliness to the scene 

 the former could not enliven. I thought of home, and 

 those I loved — of life and its lights and shadows — of 

 death and its deeper mysteries — of the far world be- 

 yond the stars, and that " palace" to which " even 

 the bright sun itself is but a porch lamp." 



But these reveries will not fit me for to-morrow's 

 toil, and so good-night to you. 



Yours truly. 



