nce like death fell on
the whole assembly. They faded away. I looked, and the whole picture had
vanished from my sight.

Then the sound of a trumpet fell on my listening ears. Horses were pawing
the ground outside, dogs were barking, while the moon, calm, clear,
inviting to meditation, still poured her soft light into my alcove.

The door opened as if by a blast of wind, and fifty huntsmen, followed by
a company of young ladies attired as they were two centuries ago, in long
trains, defiled with majestic pace out of one chamber into the other.
Four serving-men passed amongst them, bearing on their brawny shoulders
on a stout litter of oak boughs the bloody carcass of a monstrous wild
boar, with dim and faded eye, and with the foam yet lying white on his
formidable tusks and grisly jaws.

Then I heard the flourishes of the brazen trumpets redoubled in loudness
and energy; but silence fell, and the pomp and dignity, passed away with
a sigh like the last moans of a storm in the woods; then--nothing at
all--nothing to hear--nothing to see!

As I lay dreaming over this strange vision, and my eyes wandering vaguely
over the empty space in the silent darkness, I observed with astonishment
the blank space becoming silently occupied by one of the old Protestant
families of former days, calm, solemn, and dignified in their bearing and
conversation.

There sat the white-haired patriarch with the big Bible upon his knees;
the aged mother, tall and pale, spinning the flax grown by themselves,
sitting as straight and immovable as her own distaff, her ruff up to her
ears, her long waist compressed in a stiff black bodice; then there sat
the fat and rosy children, with serious countenances and thoughtful blue
eyes, leaning in silence with their elbows on the table; the dog lay
stretched by the great hearth apparently listening to the reading; the
old clock stood in the corner ticking seconds; farther on in the shadow
were girls' faces and young men, talking seriously to them about Jacob
and Rachel by way of love-making.

And this good family seemed penetrated with the truth of the sacred
story; the old man in broken accents was reading aloud the edifying
history of the settlement of the children of Israel in the Land of
Canaan--

"This is the Land of Promise--the land promised to Abraham and Isaac and
Jacob your fathers--that you may be multiplied in it as the stars of
heaven for multitude, and as the sand which is upon the sea