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Autumn hues gild the trees, the wide pastures are of brilliant green, and on the rough land the reddening bent-grass glows richly in the declining sun, which throws its glory alike over snowy hills and rosy clouds. The only blot, if a white edifice can be thus designated, is the stern, angular police barrack.

The clear-cut rocky mountain, its low edges fringed with trees, its top so bare, the blue sky and passing clouds, that bright spot which rose so quickly far back of the topmost turn of the Dome, all mirrored at their feet. Job's esthetic nature was stirred to its depths, and he echoed Jane's adjectives.

Here, on still summer afternoons, one seems to have come upon a sleeping world; a world over whose slumber the clouds are passing like peaceful dreams. In such an hour the limpid water of the spring seems to rise out of the very heart of the earth, and to bring with it an unfailing refreshment of spirit.

By and by, after stampeding all the exposed cattle, and driving everybody to the nearest shelter and keeping them there, the inky clouds dispersed almost as suddenly as they had gathered, and the thermometer gradually crept back to a figure nearly as high as at noon.

When Jarvis, therefore, had safely deposited his charge at Morley's Hotel, in Cockspur Street, and extorted from them an extra shilling, in consideration of their evident rustication, he bent his course towards the Opera House; for clouds were gathering, and, with the favour of Providence, there seemed a chance about midnight of picking up some helpless beau, or desperate cabless dandy, the choicest victim, in a midnight shower, of these public conveyancers.

If it were possible to translate the comprehensive and melodious language in which he spoke, the ode might read something like the following: "Manitou! Manitou! Manitou! Thou art great, thou art good, thou art wise: Manitou! Manitou! Thou art just. In the heavens, in the clouds, oh, I see many spots many dark, many red: In the heavens, oh, I see many clouds."

The appearance of the great luminary was hailed with joy, as the omen of a happier fate than had been heralded by the clouds and storms of evening.

It is a question of great interest to us; however, among those matters which are rather curious than consequential; for in our own case, as we know, we that are redeemed are to be caught up, together with other blessed creatures, "in the clouds, to meet our coming Saviour in the air, and thereafter to be ever with the Lord."

But suddenly the idea flashed into my brain, like lightning darting among dark clouds, that the old woman had made me do this thing on purpose. She had played me a trick and if she had, she must have some bad reason for doing it. Those two sons of hers! I scrambled up, shocked and jarred by the fall, my hands and knees smarting as if they were skinned. "I've fallen down," I cried. "Do you hear?"

I was sufficiently interested to follow the boat, on the chance that a return of the moonlight might show me who could possibly be in it. After no very long interval, the yellow light for which I was waiting poured through the lifting clouds. The mill-boat, beyond all doubt and nobody in it! The empty inside of the boat was perfectly visible to me.