Ill 



OF TO-NIGHT 



TO-NIGHT the garden was delicious. The 

 sky was covered with a film of cloud which 

 diffused the light of the moon (in her first quarter) 

 all over the heavens into a soft and radiant blue. 

 She hung just above the greatest of that row of 

 elms which burdens the western sky line. A high 

 branch touched her. The big trees loomed immi- 

 nent, rather terrible. The great one seemed to 

 crouch there, huge, devilish. In two clear places 

 among its branches there seemed the long slit eyes 

 in the head of a bushy and shapeless demon. It 

 must have been the immense and contrasting 

 peace of the night that put this gruesome idea 

 into my head. The elm-fiend was to the rest 

 of my circumstances like that abominable antici- 

 pation of trouble which so often does its best 

 to kill complete happiness. Low among the arms 

 of the smaller, thinner elms to the south, lightning 

 flickered, just above the down. The stars shone 

 very faint, largely luminous. A sigh of breeze 

 stirred rarely. Sounds are never absent in the 



22 



