of cannon, and might soon gleam around them with the whirring sweep
of the troopers' broad blades; while all throughout the land, the
hateful demon of party spirit tore wide into gashes the wounds first
made by conscience in the best, and by prejudice in the good.

The elder ladies had floated away together between the mossy stems,
under the canopies of blossoms; Rowland had fallen behind and joined
the waiting Amanda, and the two were now flitting about like moths
in the moonshine; Dorothy and Dr. Bayly had halted in an open spot,
like a moonlight impluvium, the divine talking eagerly to the
maiden, and the maiden looking up at the moon, and heeding the
nightingales more than the divine.

'CAN they be English nightingales?' said Dorothy thoughtfully.

The doctor was bewildered for a moment. He had been talking about
himself, not the nightingales, but he recovered himself like a
gentleman.

'Assuredly, mistress Dorothy,' he replied; 'this is the land of
their birth. Hither they come again when the winter is over.'

'Yes; they take no part in our troubles. They will not sing to
comfort our hearts in the cold; but give them warmth enough, and
they sing as careless of battle-fields and dead men as if they were
but moonlight and apple-blossoms.'

'Is it not better so?' returned the divine after a moment's thought.
'How would it be if everything in nature but re-echoed our moan?'