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Such a day rests the traveler, who is overstimulated by shifting scenes played upon by the dazzling sun. So the cool gray clouds spread a grateful umbrella above us as we ran across the Bay of Fundy, sighted the headlands of the Gut of Digby, and entered into the Annapolis Basin, and into the region of a romantic history.

This paragon of valleys burst upon us as such scenes, to be witnessed with advantage, ought to do, without the slightest warning or expectation.

So changed was the aspect of the country since Solon had last seen it, and so excited did the old man become as he neared the scenes of former years, that it was evident he could not be depended upon to recognize Moss Bank when they should reach it. The day was nearly spent before they arrived at what they felt sure must be its immediate vicinity.

He explored the old ruin there, but no fancy could ever persuade him to see more than a windmill in it; but the charm of Newport's situation, harbor, and shore lines lingered in his mind and served him for the opening and closing scenes of this work.

"It was not here nor amidst the streets and the noisy abodes of anxious, worldly men nor was it in this harsh and dreary season of the year, that I could have wished to look my last on earth. Could I have seen the face of Nature could I have watched once more with the summer sun amidst those gentle scenes we loved so well, Death would have had no difference from sleep. But what matters it?

Visiting Hampton, I recognized, in the shanties built upon the charred ruins, the familiar faces of those who, in the early days of the war, had been for a brief period under my charge. Their hearty greetings to one whom they remembered as the first to point them to freedom and cheer them with its prospect could hardly be received without emotion. But there is no time to linger over these scenes.

And ever they found new scenes to gleam within these Lives, and cities and sails and men shone in them where there had been before only green fields and sea, and ever Yahn the usurer cried out to remind them of their bargain.

Some one imagined that these meetings were the scenes of unlawful pleasures, the engines of the law were secretly directed against us, and the casino was shut up, and we were ordered to be arrested. All escaped except myself and a man named Branzandi. We had to wait for our unjust sentence for two years, but at last it appeared.

It is impossible to conceive anything more droll than many of the scenes depicted on these ancient benches.

In his own placid life he had never had any tragic happening, his blood had run coolly, his days had been blessed by an urbane fate; such scenes as this were but a spectacle to him; there was no answering chord of human suffering in his own breast, to make him realise what Grassette was undergoing now; but he had read widely, he had been an acute observer of the world and its happenings, and he had a natural human sympathy which had made many a man and woman eternally grateful to him.