little readers of story-books, by the firelight, trembled to think
of Cassim Baba cut into quarters, hanging in the Robbers' Cave, or
had some small misgivings that the fierce little old woman, with
the crutch, who used to start out of the box in the merchant
Abudah's bedroom, might, one of these nights, be found upon the
stairs, in the long, cold, dusky journey up to bed.

When, in rustic places, the last glimmering of daylight died away
from the ends of avenues; and the trees, arching overhead, were
sullen and black. When, in parks and woods, the high wet fern and
sodden moss, and beds of fallen leaves, and trunks of trees, were
lost to view, in masses of impenetrable shade. When mists arose
from dyke, and fen, and river. When lights in old halls and in
cottage windows, were a cheerful sight. When the mill stopped, the
wheelwright and the blacksmith shut their workshops, the turnpike-
gate closed, the plough and harrow were left lonely in the fields,
the labourer and team went home, and the striking of the church
clock had a deeper sound than at noon, and the churchyard wicket
would be swung no more that night.

When twilight everywhere released the shadows, prisoned up all day,
that now closed in and gathered like mustering swarms of ghosts.
When they stood lowering, in corners of rooms, and frowned out from
behind half-opened doors. When they had full possession of
unoccupied apartments. When they danced upon the floors, and
walls, and ceilings of inhabited chambers, while the fire was low,
and withdrew like ebbing waters when it sprang into a blaze. When
they fantastically mocked the shapes of household objects, making
the nurse an ogress, the rocking-horse a monster, the wondering
child, half-scared and half-amused, a stranger to itself,--the very