his very
large one, could not have afforded this.

After distributing to his pensioners their weekly stipends, listening
patiently to the complaints of some, redressing the grievances of
others, and softening the discontents of all, by the look of sympathy,
and the smile of benevolence, St. Aubert returned home through the
woods,

where
At fall of eve the fairy-people throng,
In various games and revelry to pass
The summer night, as village stories tell.*
*Thomson

'The evening gloom of woods was always delightful to me,' said St.
Aubert, whose mind now experienced the sweet calm, which results from
the consciousness of having done a beneficent action, and which disposes
it to receive pleasure from every surrounding object. 'I remember that
in my youth this gloom used to call forth to my fancy a thousand fairy
visions, and romantic images; and, I own, I am not yet wholly insensible
of that high enthusiasm, which wakes the poet's dream: I can linger,
with solemn steps, under the deep shades, send forward a transforming
eye into the distant obscurity, and listen with thrilling delight to the
mystic murmuring of the woods.'

'O my dear father,' said Emily, while a sudden tear started to her eye,
'how exactly you describe what I have felt so often, and which I thought
nobody had ever felt but myself! But hark! here comes the sweeping sound
over the wood-tops;--now it dies away;--how solemn the stillness that
succeeds! Now the breeze swells again. It is like the voice of some
supernatural being--the voice of the spirit of the woods, that watches
over them by night. Ah! what light is yonder? But it is gone. And now it
gleams again, near the root of that large chestnut: look, sir!'

'Are you such an admirer of nature,' said St. Aubert, 'and so little
acquainted with her appearances as not to know that for the glow-worm?
But come,' added he gaily, 'step a little further, and we shall see
fairies, perhaps; they are often companions. The glow-worm lends his
light, and they in return charm him with music, and the dance. Do you
see nothing tripping yonder?'

Emily laughed. 'Well, my dear sir,' said she, 'since you allow of this
alliance, I may venture to own I have anticipated you; and almost dare
venture to repeat some verses I made one evening in these very woods.'

'Nay,' replied St. Aubert, 'dismiss the ALMOST, and venture quite; let
us hear what vagaries fancy has been playing in your mind. If she has