intending it, I became at once the author and hero of a romance,
conjuring up rivals, imagining events, the actions of others and my own,
and experiencing every change of passion, till jealousy and despair had
their end in bliss. O, had I the burning fancy of my early youth, with
manhood's colder gift, the power of expression, your hearts, sweet
ladies, should flutter at my tale!

In the middle of January, I was summoned home. The day before my
departure, visiting the spots which had been hallowed by the Vision, I
found that the spring had a frozen bosom, and nothing but the snow and a
glare of winter sunshine, on the hill of the rainbow. "Let me hope,"
thought I, "or my heart will be as icy as the fountain, and the whole
world as desolate as this snowy hill." Most of the day was spent in
preparing for the journey, which was to commence at four o'clock the next
morning. About an hour after supper, when all was in readiness, I
descended from my chamber to the sitting-room, to take leave of the old
clergyman and his family, with whom I had been an inmate. A gust of wind
blew out my lamp as I passed through the entry.

According to their invariable custom, so pleasant a one when the fire
blazes cheerfully, the family were sitting in the parlor, with no other
light than what came from the hearth. As the good clergyman's scanty
stipend compelled him to use all sorts of economy, the foundation of his
fires was always a large heap of tan, or ground bark, which would
smoulder away, from morning till night, with a dull warmth and no flame.
This evening the heap of tan was newly put on, and surmounted with three
sticks of red-oak, full of moisture, and a few pieces of dry pine, that
had not yet kindled. There was no light, except the little that came
sullenly from two half-burned brands, without even glimmering on the
andirons. But I knew the position of the old minister's arm-chair, and