rds were singing in the birch-trees
by the wall; and two little, brown-locked, merry-faced girls were making
wreaths of the dandelions and grasses which grew upon the old man's
grave. The sun was setting behind the western river-bluffs, flooding
the valley with soft light, glorifying every object and fusing all into
harmony and beauty. I saw and felt nothing to depress or sadden me. I
could have joined in the laugh of the children. The light whistle of a
young teamster, driving merrily homeward, did not jar upon my ear; for
from the transfigured landscape, and from the singing birds, and from
sportive childhood, and from blossoming sweetbrier, and from the grassy
mound before me, I heard the whisper of one word only, and that word
was PEACE.

CHAPTER. II. SOME ACCOUNT OF PEEWAWKIN ON THE TOCKETUCK.

WELL and truly said the wise man of old, "Much study is a weariness to
the flesh." Hard and close application through the winter had left me
ill prepared to resist the baleful influences of a New England spring.
I shrank alike from the storms of March, the capricious changes of
April, and the sudden alternations of May, from the blandest of
southwest breezes to the terrible and icy eastern blasts which sweep our
seaboard like the fabled sanser, or wind of death. The buoyancy and
vigor, the freshness and beauty of life seemed leaving me. The flesh
and the spirit were no longer harmonious. I was tormented by a
nightmare feeling of the necessity of exertion, coupled with a sense of
utter inability. A thousand plans for my own benefit, or the welfare of
those dear to me, or of my fellow-men at large, passed before me; but I
had no strength to lay hold of the good angels and detain them until
they left their blessing. The trumpet sounded in my ears for the
tournament of life; but I could not bear the weight of my armor. In the
midst of duties and responsibilities which I clearly comprehended, I
found myself yielding to the absorbing egotism of sickness. I could
work only when the sharp rowels of necessity were in my sides.

It needed not the ominous warnings of my acquaintance to convince me
that some decisive change was necessary. But what was to be done? A
voyage to Europe was suggested by my friends; but unhappily I reckoned
among them no one who was ready, like the honest laird of Dumbiedikes,
to inquire, purse in hand, "Will siller do it?" In casting about for
some other expedient, I remembered the pl