"I am glad it is not yet winter," thought I; "but in two months more
come the winds and rains of November; would to God that before then I
could earn the right, and the power, to shovel coals into that grate AD
LIBITUM!"

Already the pavement was drying; a balmy and fresh breeze stirred the
air, purified by lightning; I felt the West behind me, where spread a
sky like opal; azure immingled with crimson: the enlarged sun, glorious
in Tyrian tints, dipped his brim already; stepping, as I was, eastward,
I faced a vast bank of clouds, but also I had before me the arch of an
evening rainbow; a perfect rainbow--high, wide, vivid. I looked long;
my eye drank in the scene, and I suppose my brain must have absorbed
it; for that night, after lying awake in pleasant fever a long time,
watching the silent sheet-lightning, which still played among the
retreating clouds, and flashed silvery over the stars, I at last fell
asleep; and then in a dream were reproduced the setting sun, the bank of
clouds, the mighty rainbow. I stood, methought, on a terrace; I leaned
over a parapeted wall; there was space below me, depth I could not
fathom, but hearing an endless dash of waves, I believed it to be the
sea; sea spread to the horizon; sea of changeful green and intense
blue: all was soft in the distance; all vapour-veiled. A spark of gold
glistened on the line between water and air, floated up, approached,
enlarged, changed; the object hung midway between heaven and earth,
under the arch of the rainbow; the soft but dusk clouds diffused behind.
It hovered as on wings; pearly, fleecy, gleaming air streamed like
raiment round it; light, tinted with carnation, coloured what seemed
face and limbs; A large star shone with still lustre on an angel's
forehead; an upraised arm and hand, glancing like a ray, pointed to the
bow overhead, and a voice in my heart whispered--

"Hope smiles on Effort!"

CHAPTER XX.

A COMPETENCY was what I wanted; a competency it was now my aim and
resolve to secure; but never had I been farther from the mark. With
August the school-year (l'annee scolaire) closed, the examinations
concluded, the prizes were adjudged, the schools dispersed, the gates of
all colleges, the doors of all pensionnats shut, not to be reopened till
the beginning or middle of October. The last day of August was at hand,
and what was my position? Had I advanced a step since the commencement
of the past quarter? On the contrary, I had r