he mood to consider the early sun.
There remains to us the evening, also,--the leisure hour of the day.
But, alas! our houses are not built with an adaptation to this subject.
They are seldom made to look toward the sunset. A careful inquiry and
close observation, such as have been called for in preparation of this
paper, have developed the fact that not a single house in this town
faces the sunset! There may be windows looking that way, but in such a
case there is always a barn between. I can testify to this from personal
observations, because, with my brothers, we have walked through the
several streets of this town with note-books, carefully noting every
house looking upon the sunset, and have found none from which the sunset
could be studied. Sometimes it was the next house, sometimes a row of
houses, or its own wood-house, that stood in the way.
Of course, a study of the sun might be pursued out of doors. But in
summer, sunstroke would be likely to follow; in winter, neuralgia and
cold. And how could you consult your books, your dictionaries, your
encyclopaedias? There seems to be no hour of the day for studying the
sun. You might go to the East to see it at its rising, or to the West to
gaze upon its setting, but--you don't.
Here Elizabeth Eliza came to a pause. She had written five different
endings, and had brought them all, thinking, when the moment came, she
would choose one of them. She was pausing to select one, and
inadvertently said, to close the phrase, "you don't." She had not meant
to use the expression, which she would not have thought sufficiently
imposing,--it dropped out unconsciously,--but it was received as a close
with rapturous applause.
She had read slowly, and now that the audience applauded at such a
length, she had time to feel she was much exhausted and glad of an end.
Why not stop there, though there were some pages more? Applause, too,
was heard from the outside. Some of the gentlemen had come,--Mr.
Peterkin, Agamemnon, and Solomon John, with others,--and demanded
admission.
"Since it is all over, let them in," said Ann Maria Bromwick.
Elizabeth Eliza assented, and rose to shake hands with her applauding
friends.
MR. STIVER'S HORSE
BY JAMES MONTGOMERY BAILEY
The other morning at breakfast Mrs. Perkins observed that Mr. Stiver, in
whose house we live, had been called away, and wanted to know if I would
see to his horse through the day.
I knew that Mr. Stiver
|