Oh, is there any sound just like it! Could our poor invalids but pitch their nostrums over the wall, and take this tonic instead!
Some friends of mine moved a while ago and drove their family stake in a spot far off from here. They are continually writing me of a region of perpetual sunshine and summer. I thought of them on this glorious night, and pitied them from the depths of my heart, as I often have, indeed, since they went out there. Theirs is the place for the extremely indigent, no doubt, but for any one who can command a dollar or so for fuel, this--this is the land of delight.
I was at no loss as to direction; our suburb was beautiful throughout, especially all along by the lake, but there was one place in particular, where art and nature had joined hands, with a result indescribable. Toward these grounds I hastened, on this particular night.
Oh, the glory of that moon! the glory of the lake! an undulating sea of waves, each crested with a feather, as soft, as snowy in the moonlight, as the tinier ones that hung upon the trees.
I ran down the winding avenue--the white fog still lingered in the deep places, but above, all was clear and glorious. Erelong I entered the Dunham's grounds. At a certain point, unmarked to the stranger's eye, a rustic flight of stairs, now strewn with dead leaves--padded with snow as well, to-night, dips down from the broad driveway. Quickly I made my way by this path, and erelong, stood upon one of the little rustic bridges spanning the ravine, and connecting with a similar flight of ascending stairs upon the other side. There I paused, and well I might. It were a dull, plodding creature indeed, who would not be spellbound by such a scene! On either hand were the sloping wooded sides of the ravine whose depths were shrouded in the mysterious whiteness of the fog; above me, a short distance in front, was the arch of the broad, picturesque bridge with which the driveway spans the hollow. The little rustic bridge on which I stood was much lower than the larger one; hence, from my position, I looked through the archway, beyond, down, and far along the ravine. Can you call up fairyland to your mental eye? It would pale before this scene--those feathery trees! that enchanting vista! I stood there drinking it in, and pitying the sleeping world. I could not, even in thought, express my delight and gratitude for being permitted to behold such beauty, but finally a familiar line leaped from my lips: "Praise God from whom all blessings flow."