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The letters were most of them written by my father to my mother, just before and soon after their marriage, with one or two from her to him. One of these, which I found between the leaves of this little book, I want you to read. It concludes my story, and to my mind lightens it a little."

It lightens cities, at a turn of the wrist; it hurls your voice half way round the world, it guides sailors and measures and weighs the stars; it threads empires together with its humming wires; it's the shuttle that's woven all civilization into one compact fabric! It's the light of our night-time, and the civilizer of our world. It explodes mines, and heals sickness.

By noon it begins to snow, and you hear the desolate cry of the phoebe-bird. The fine snow becomes rain; it becomes large snow; it melts as it falls; it freezes as it falls. At last a storm sets in, and night shuts down upon the bleak scene. During the night there is a change. It thunders and lightens. Toward morning there is a brilliant display of aurora borealis.

"Thank God! thank God!" ejaculated Cap; "the sound of your sweet voice, Magnet, lightens my heart of a heavy load, for I feared you had shared the fate of poor Jennie. My breast has felt the last four-and-twenty hours as if a ton of kentledge had been stowed in it. You ask me what you ought to do, child, and I do not know how to advise you, though you are my own sister's daughter!

'But if I kill him, how am I to get the golden bowl and the diamond lance that are hidden in the cellar without a key? rejoined Peronnik. 'The flower that laughs opens all doors and lightens all darkness, said the lady; and as she spoke, they reached the further bank, and advanced towards the castle.

It wuz in this place that our Lord give that glorious promise that lightens life and death: "After I be risen I will go before you." Every leaf of the old olive trees seemed trembling and full of memories of that hour. To the west was the valley of Jehosiphet, beyend is the city of the King.

After that, what does great good is to converse with some friend, and not be ashamed to show one's grief before him, for that lightens and comforts the heart; and not at any rate to take the course the duke took of concealing himself and keeping himself solitary; he was so terrible to his own folks that none durst come forward to give him any comfort or counsel; but all left him to do as he pleased, feeling that, if they made him any remonstrance, it would be the worse for them."

"I saw you weeping," said the slave-woman, "you seem ill or sad; let me watch this night by your bedside. Will you not tell me what ails you? You have often found that to tell a sorrow lightens the heart and lessens the pain. Then tell me your grief to-day too; it will do you good, it will bring back peace to your mind." "No," answered the other, "I cannot utter it."

"It is black as pitch," exclaimed Helen, who had risen to draw the bolt; "an' the drift flies sae thick that it feels to the hand like a solid snaw wreath. An', oh, how it lightens?" "Heaven itsel hae mercy on them!" again ejaculated the old man. "My two boys," said he, addressing the widow, "are at the far Frith; an' how can an open boat live in a night like this?"

Throughout the first act his presence lightens on us by flashes, as his voice peals out by fits, from behind or above the too meanly decorated altar of tragic or satiric song: in the second it is more sensibly continuous; in the third it is all but utterly eclipsed; in the fourth it is but very rarely intercepted for a very brief interval in the dark divine service of a darker Commination Day: in the fifth it predominates generally over the sullen and brooding atmosphere with the fierce imperious glare of a "bloody sun" like that which the wasting shipmen watched at noon "in a hot and copper sky."