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-burnt brands, without even glimmering on
the andirons. But I knew the position of the old minister's arm-chair,
and also where his wife sat with her knitting-work, and how to avoid
his two daughters--one a stout country lass, and the other a
consumptive girl. Groping through the gloom, I found my own place next
to that of the son, a learned collegian who had come home to keep
school in the village during the winter vacation. I noticed that there
was less room than usual to-night between the collegian's chair and
mine.

As people are always taciturn in the dark, not a word was said for
some time after my entrance. Nothing broke the stillness but the
regular click of the matron's knitting-needles. At times the fire
threw out a brief and dusky gleam which twinkled on the old man's
glasses and hovered doubtfully round our circle, but was far too faint
to portray the individuals who composed it. Were we not like ghosts?
Dreamy as the scene was, might it not be a type of the mode in which
departed people who had known and loved each other here would hold
communion in eternity? We were aware of each other's presence, not by
sight nor sound nor t