commotion - and just faded away into the Outer World so softly, so
gently, so contentedly! . . . . .

(Have you tried any bread-and-butter-and-sugar recently? Did it taste
the same as it used to? . . .

No? . . . Perhaps you broke it into pieces instead of beginning at one
side and eating straight through?

Or maybe you got hold of the cooking butter . . . Or did you try it with
baker's bread? . . .

No? . . . Well, why didn't it taste the same?



Jimmy the Lamplighter



The sun had gone down behind the willows on the river-bank. The
night-clouds still carried the crimson-and-purple of the late twilight;
and the deep, still waters of the channel gave back the colors and the
gleam of the first stars that heralded the night . . . . . The martins
chattered under the eaves, scolding some belated member of the clan who
pushed noisily for a lodging-place for the night. The black bat and the
darting nighthawk were a-wing, grim spectres of the dusk. The
whip-poor-will was crying along the river, and far up-stream the loon
called weirdly across the water. . . . .