if she were awake; and when she had satisfied herself of that
fact she began to ask herself whether we had been really in the Forest
at all; whether we had not been dreaming in a kind of double
consciousness, and had now come to the awakening which should rob us of
this golden memory. At last we recognised the fact that we were still
in Arden, and that it was raining. It was a melancholy awakening, and
we were silent and depressed at breakfast; for the first time no birds
sang, and no sunlight flickered through the leaves and brought the day
smiling to our very door. The rain fell steadily, and when the wind
swept through the trees a sound like a sob went up from the Forest.
After breakfast, for lack of active occupation, we lighted a few sticks
in the rough fireplace, and found ourselves gradually drawn into the
circle of cheer in the little room. The great world of Nature was for
a moment out of doors, and there seemed no incongruity talking about
our own experiences; we recalled the days in the world we had left
behind; we remembered the faces of our neighbours; we reminded each
other of the incidents of our journey; we retold, in antiphonal
fashion, the story of our stay in the Forest; we grew eloquent as we
described, one after another, the noble persons we had met there; our
hearts kindled as we became conscious of the wonderful enrichment and
enlargement of life that had come to us; and as the varied splendours
of the days and scenes of Arden returned in our memories, the spell of
the Forest came upon us, and the mysterious cadence of the rain,
falling from leaf to leaf, added another and deeper tone to the harmony
of our Forest life. The gloom had gone; we had all the delight of a
new experience in our hearts.

"I am glad it rains," Rosalind said, as she gave the fire one of her
vigorous stirrings; "I am glad it rains: I don't think we should have
realised how lovely it is here if we were not shut in from time to
time. One is played upon by so many impressions that one must escape
from them to understand how beautiful they are. And then I'm not sure
that even dark days and rain have not something which sunshine and
clear skies could not give us." As usual, Rosalind had spoken my
thought before I had made it quite clear to myself; I began to feel the
peculiar delight of our comfort in the heart of that great forest when
the storm was abroad. The monotone of the rain became rhythmic with
some ancient, pr