can only rustle under my feet. Henceforth the gray parsonage begins
to assume a larger importance, and draws to its fireside,--for the
abomination of the air-tight stove is reserved till wintry weather,--
draws closer and closer to its fireside the vagrant impulses that had
gone wandering about through the summer.

When summer was dead and buried the Old Manse became as lonely as a
hermitage. Not that ever--in my time at least--it had been thronged
with company; but, at no rare intervals, we welcomed some friend out
of the dusty glare and tumult of the world, and rejoiced to share with
him the transparent obscurity that was floating over us. In one
respect our precincts were like the Enchanted Ground through which the
pilgrim travelled on his way to the Celestial City. The guests, each
and all, felt a slumberous influence upon them; they fell asleep in
chairs, or took a more deliberate siesta on the sofa, or were seen
stretched among the shadows of the orchard, looking up dreamily
through the boughs. They could not have paid a more acceptable
compliment to my abode nor to my own qualities as a host. I held it
as a proof that they left their cares behind them as they passed
between the stone gate-posts at the entrance of our avenue, and that
the so powerful opiate was the abundance of peace and quiet within and
all around us. Others could give them pleasure and amusement or
instruction,--these could be picked up anywhere; but it was for me to
give them rest,--rest in a life of trouble. What better could be
done for those weary and world-worn spirits?--for him whose career of
perpetual action was impeded and harassed by the rarest of his powers
and the richest of his acquirements?--for another who had thrown his
ardent heart from earliest youth into the strife of politics, and now,
perchance, began to suspect that one lifetime is too brief for the
accomplishment of any lofty aim?--for her oil whose feminine nature