when its
effect grew a little too soporific,--not for my patience, but for the
possibility of keeping my eyes open, I bestirred myself, started from
the rocking-chair, and looked out of the window.

A gray sky; the weathercock of a steeple that rose beyond the opposite
range of buildings, pointing from the eastward; a sprinkle of small,
spiteful-looking raindrops on the window-pane. In that ebb-tide of my
energies, had I thought of venturing abroad, these tokens would have
checked the abortive purpose.

After several such visits to the window, I found myself getting pretty
well acquainted with that little portion of the backside of the
universe which it presented to my view. Over against the hotel and its
adjacent houses, at the distance of forty or fifty yards, was the rear
of a range of buildings which appeared to be spacious, modern, and
calculated for fashionable residences. The interval between was
apportioned into grass-plots, and here and there an apology for a
garden, pertaining severally to these dwellings. There were
apple-trees, and pear and peach trees, too, the fruit on which looked
singularly large, luxuriant, and abundant, as well it might, in a
situation so warm and sheltered, and where the soil had doubtless been
enriched to a more than natural fertility. In two or three places
grapevines clambered upon trellises, and bore clusters already purple,
and promising the richness of Malta or Madeira in their ripened juice.
The blighting winds of our rigid climate could not molest these trees
and vines; the sunshine, though descending late into this area, and too
early intercepted by the height of the surrounding houses, yet lay
tropically there, even when less than temperate in every other region.
Dreary as was the day, the scene was illuminated by not a few sparrows
and other birds, which spread their wings, and flitted and fluttered,
and alighted now here, now there, and busily scratched their food out
of the wormy earth. Most of these winged people seemed to have their
domicile in a robust and healthy buttonwood-tree. It aspired upward,
high above the roofs of the houses, and spread a dense head of foliage
half across the area.

There was a cat--as there invariably is in such places--who evidently
thought herself entitled to the privileges of forest life in this close
heart of city conventionalisms. I watched her creeping along the low,
flat roofs of the offices, descending a flight of wooden st