had brought its coveted security at last within our reach. For so it was
with some of us. Perhaps the air of sea and mountain had got into the
blood, and infected it with a certain disrelish for the restraints, the
even decorum, and the tamer surroundings of our life in the Midlands.
Well, we are not the only emigrants who have preferred their backwoods to
the streets of the mother city, nor the first campaigners who have come
back to home-quarters a trifle spoiled by adventure. And, moreover,
while everything about us was a reminder of what we must forego, there
was nothing to tell us of what a greeting our townsmen were preparing for
us, or of the solid mutual good which filled the vista beyond that
auspicious welcome.

However, alike for those who were impatient and those who were half
reluctant to attain it, the equal-handed hours brought the end of our
exile. On one of our last evenings, April 6th, a reading was given in
the school-room, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" with Mendelssohn's music; no
unfit close, we said, to our _annns mirabilis_. For, indeed, its
incidents had been "such stuff as dreams are made of," as whimsical if
not quite as harmless, as if their plot had been directed by the blithe
goblin of Shakespeare's fantasy. The chorus of readers and of singers
were so far encouraged by their success, as to offer a second recital as
a farewell entertainment to the good people of Borth. They enjoyed it
hugely. Doubtless some of the simpler members of that audience would
follow the drift of the Sassenach poet only at a certain distance; but
Bottom's "transformed scalp," a pasteboard ass's-head, come all the way
from Nathan's, was eloquent without help of an interpreter. "Oh! that
donkey, he was beautiful," was the dramatic criticism of an esteemed
friend, a fisher's wife. The criticism was at least sincere; from the
moment of the monster's entry she had been in one rapture of laughter,
till her "face was like a wet cloak ill laid up." Well, the kind soul