shaken down at intervals by the frequent gusts of wind. All day long,
and for a week together, the rain was drip-drip-dripping and splash-
splash-splashing from the eaves and bubbling and foaming into the tubs
beneath the spouts. The old, unpainted shingles of the house and
outbuildings were black with moisture; and the mosses of ancient
growth upon the walls looked green and fresh, as if they were the
newest things and afterthought of Time. The usually mirrored surface
of the river was blurred by an infinity of raindrops; the whole
landscape had a completely water-soaked appearance, conveying the
impression that the earth was wet through like a sponge; while the
summit of a wooded hill, about a mile distant, was enveloped in a
dense mist, where the demon of the tempest seemed to have his abiding-
place and to be plotting still direr inclemencies.

Nature has no kindness, no hospitality, during a rain. In the
fiercest beat of sunny days she retains a secret mercy, and welcomes
the wayfarer to shady nooks of the woods whither the sun cannot
penetrate; but she provides no shelter against her storms. It makes us
shiver to think of those deep, umbrageous recesses, those
overshadowing banks, where we found such enjoyment during the sultry
afternoons. Not a twig of foliage there but would dash a little
shower into our faces. Looking reproachfully towards the impenetrable
sky,--if sky there be above that dismal uniformity of cloud,--we are
apt to murmur against the whole system of the universe, since it
involves the extinction of so many summer days in so short a life by
the hissing and spluttering rain. In such spells of weather,--and it
is to be supposed such weather came,--Eve's bower in paradise must
have been but a cheerless and aguish kind of shelter, nowise
comparable to the old parsonage, which had resources of its own to
beguile the week's imprisonment. The idea of sleeping on a couch of