leads us in childhood; and we listen, with docile tenderness, to its
teachings, for it tells with pathos, of suffering in the hovels of the
poor, and want, and poverty, and bids us thither like a winged angel.
Down, beneath the rustic bridge, boys were shouting and skating on the
frozen stream, their laughter echoing like music through the old woods;
anon, the sharp crack of rifle, or the distant barking of dogs, rung on
the still air, while the bells of the city, and the hum rising up from
its crowded streets, blending with the clear echoes, made a concert of
merry and harmonious sounds. Mr. Stillinghast paused on a knoll, and
looked around him. There lay the rolling country, with its undulations
of hill and vale, all interspersed, and adorned with picturesque
cottages and elegant villas. Towards the east, up rose the splendid
city, with up-hill and down-hill streets; its marble monuments,
commemorative of great men and great deeds; its magnificent domes,
raised in honor of the Most High God; its lofty towers, its princely
mansions; while far beyond, stretching to the verge of the horizon,
slumbered the quiet and beautiful bay, sparkling like a sea of
_ultramarine_ and diamonds, over whose waters hundreds of sails were
hovering like white sea-fowl.

Towards the north-western boundary of the city, he saw the dark,
massive founderies and manufactories, which, from their
palatial-looking walls, sent out the never-ceasing clang of labor, and
the tireless song of steam, to which thousands of stout arms and brawny
sinews kept time. And far beyond these, out on the quiet hills, the
scene terminated in a Marble City,[1] where, beneath trees of centuries
growth, its inhabitants slumber silently through the long, cold night
of death, until the revivifying beams of the resurrection day shall
dawn on the earth-mantle that wraps their clay. But over all shone the
glad beauty of the day. It poured down its effulgence alike on the