38 Streamers of Sunshine. 



nick of time, wliile his neiglibor is loudly complain- 

 ing that he has had no rain. When the sky is over- 

 cast — large masses of cloud, with occasional breaks 

 passing slowly across it at a considerable elevation 

 without rain — sometimes through these narrow slits 

 long beams of light fall aslant upon the distant fields 

 of the vale. They resemble, only on a greatly 

 lengthened scale, the beams that may be seen in 

 churches of a sunn}- afternoon, ftiUing from the upper 

 windows on the tiled floor of the chancel, and made 

 visible by motes in the air. So through such slits in 

 the cloudy roof of the sky the ra^'^s of the sun shoot 

 downwards, made visible on their passage by the 

 moisture or the motes floating in the atmosphere. 

 They seem to linger in their place as the clouds drift 

 with scarcely perceptible motion ; and the laborers 

 say that the sun is sucking up water there. 



In the evening of a fine day the mists may be 

 seen from hence as they rise in the meadows far 

 beneath : beginning first over the brooks, a long 

 white winding vapor marking their course, next 

 extending over the moist places and hollows. Higher 

 in the air darker bars of mist, separate and distinct 

 from the white sheet beneath them, perhaps a hundred 

 feet above it, gradually come into sight as they grow 

 thicker and blacker, one here, one yonder — long and 

 narrow in shape. These seem to approach more 

 nearly in character to the true cloud than the mist 

 which hardly rises higher than the hedges. The latter 

 will sometimes move or draw across the meadows 

 when there is no apparent wind, not sufficient to 

 sway a leaf, as if in obedience to light and partial 

 currents created by a variation of temperature in 

 different parts of the same field. 



