er tired,
never willing to stay at home; and then Sunday school, and
library-books, and gingerbread, and afternoon service, and the long
walk home or the longer drive, and catechism in the evening and the
never-failing Bible. O Puritan Sabbaths! doubtless you were sometimes
stormy without and stormy within; but looking back upon you from afar,
I see no clouds, no snow, but perpetual sunshine and blue sky, and ever
eager interest and delight,--wild roses blooming under the old stone
wall, wild bees humming among the blackberry-bushes, tremulous sweet
columbines skirting the vocal woods, wild geraniums startling their
shadowy depths; and I hear now the rustle of dry leaves, bravely
stirred by childish feet, just as they used to rustle in the October
afternoons of long ago. Sweet Puritan Sabbaths! breathe upon a restless
world your calm, still breath, and keep us from the evil!

Somewhat after this fashion I harangued Halicarnassus, who was shamed
into silence, but not turned from his purpose; but the next morning he
came up from below after breakfast, and informed me, with an air
mingled of the condescension of the monarch and the resignation of the
martyr, that, as I was so scrupulous about travelling on the Sabbath,
he had concluded not to go till Monday afternoon. No, I said, I did
not wish to assume the conduct of affairs. I had given my protest, and
satisfied my own conscience; but I was not head of the party, and did
not choose to assume the responsibility of its movements. I did not
think it right to travel on Sunday, but neither do I think it right for
one person to compel a whole party to change its plans out of deference
to his scruples. So I insisted that I would not cause detention. But
Halicarnassus insisted that he would not have my conscience forced.
Now it would seem natural that so tender and profound a regard for my
scruples would have moved me to a tender and profound gratitude; but
nobody understands Halicarnassus except myself. He is a dark lane,
full of crooks and turns,--a labyrinth which nobody can thread without
the clew. That clew I hold. I know him. I can walk right through him
in the darkest night without any lantern. He is fully aware of it. He
knows that it is utterly futile for him to attempt to deceive me, and
yet, with the infatuation of a lunatic, he is continually producing his
flimsy little fictions for me as continually to blow away. For
instance, when we were walking down t