beams over groups of peasantry, which, on the opposite side of the
rivulet and at some interval from us, were scattered, partly over the
green, and partly gathered beneath the shade of a little grove. The
former were of the young, and those to whom youth's sports are dear, and
were dancing to the merry music, which (ever and anon blended with the
laugh and the tone of a louder jest) floated joyously on our ears. The
fathers and matrons of the hamlet were inhaling a more quiet joy beneath
the trees, and I involuntarily gave a tenderer interest to their
converse by supposing them to sanction to each other the rustic loves
which they might survey among their children.

"Will not Monsieur draw nearer to the dancers?" said the Cure; "there is
a plank thrown over the rivulet a little lower down."

"No!" said I, "perhaps they are seen to better advantage where we are:
what mirth will bear too close an inspection?"

True, Sir," remarked the priest, and he sighed.

"Yet," I resumed musingly, and I spoke rather to myself than to my
companion, "yet, how happy do they seem! what a revival of our Arcadian
dreams are the flute and the dance, the glossy trees all glowing in the
autumn sunset, the green sod, and the murmuring rill, and the buoyant
laugh, startling the satyr in his leafy haunts; and the rural loves
which will grow sweeter still when the sun has set, and the twilight has
made the sigh more tender and the blush of a mellower hue! Ah, why is
it only the revival of a dream? why must it be only an interval of
labour and woe, the brief saturnalia of slaves, the green resting-spot
in a dreary and long road of travail and toil?"