nto deep silences,
overpowered by the majesty of nature in this place. After a long hiatus
the bow would tremble and falter on the strings as if overawed for a
time; presently the theme would strengthen, expand, resound with large
meaning, and then he would send forth melodies that he had never before
played or heard, his own dream, the reflection of that mighty mood of
nature in the limpid pool of his receptive mind.

Around were rocks, crags, chasms,--the fields which nourished the family
lay well from the verge, within the purlieus of the limited mountain
plateau. He had sought to persuade himself that it was to save all the
arable land for tillage that he had placed his house and door-yard here,
but both he and Aurelia were secretly aware of the subterfuge; he would
fain be always within the glamour of the prospect through Sunrise Gap!

Their interlocutor had truly deemed that the woman should have been
earlier at home cooking the supper. Dusk had deepened to darkness long
before the meal smoked upon the board. The spinning-wheel had begun to
whir for her evening stint when other hill-folks had betaken themselves
to bed. Basil puffed his pipe before the fire; the flicker and flare
pervaded every nook of the bright little house. Strings of
red-pepper-pods flaunted in festoons from the beams; the baby slumbered
under a gay quilt in his rude cradle, never far from his mother's hand,
but the bluff little boy was still up and about, although his aspect,
round and burly, in a scanty nightgown, gave token of recognition of the
fact that bed was his appropriate place. His shrill plaintive voice rose
ever and anon wakefully.

"I wanter hear a bear tale,--I wanter hear a bear tale."

Thus Basil must needs knock the ashes from his pipe the better to devote
himself to the narration,--a prince of raconteurs, to judge by the
spell-bound interest of the youngster who stood at his knee and hung on
his words. Even Aurelia checked the whir of her wheel to listen
smilingly. She broke out laughing in appreciative pleasure when Basil
took up the violin to show how a jovial old bear, who intruded into this
very house one day when all the family were away at the church in the
cove, and who mistook the instrument for a banjo, addressed himself to
picking out this tune, singing the while a quaint and ursine lay. Basil
embellished the imitation with a masterly effect of realistic growls.

"Ef ye keep goin' at that gait, Basil," Aurelia a