ladies would not thus rival Atalanta if they but knew that any one were
at leisure to observe them. Ah! as they hasten onward, laughing in the
angry face of nature, a sudden catastrophe has chanced. At the corner
where the narrow lane enters into the street, they come plump against the
old merchant, whose tortoise motion has just brought him to that point.
He likes not the sweet encounter; the darkness of the whole air gathers
speedily upon his visage, and there is a pause on both sides. Finally,
he thrusts aside the youth with little courtesy, seizes an arm of each of
the two girls, and plods onward, like a magician with a prize of captive
fairies. All this is easy to be understood. How disconsolate the poor
lover stands! regardless of the rain that threatens an exceeding damage
to his well-fashioned habiliments, till he catches a backward glance of
mirth from a bright eye, and turns away with whatever comfort it conveys.

The old man and his daughters are safely housed, and now the storm lets
loose its fury. In every dwelling I perceive the faces of the
chambermaids as they shut down the windows, excluding the impetuous
shower, and shrinking away from the quick fiery glare. The large drops
descend with force upon the slated roofs, and rise again in smoke. There
is a rush and roar, as of a river through the air, and muddy streams
bubble majestically along the pavement, whirl their dusky foam into the
kennel, and disappear beneath iron grates. Thus did Arethusa sink. I
love not my station here aloft, in the midst of the tumult which I am
powerless to direct or quell, with the blue lightning wrinkling on my
brow, and the thunder muttering its first awful syllables in my ear. I
will descend. Yet let me give another glance to the sea, where the foam
breaks out in long white lines upon a broad expanse of blackness, or
boils up in far distant points, like snowy mountain-tops in the eddies of
a flood; and let me look once more at the green plain, and little hills
of the country, over which the giant of the storm is striding in robes of