u ever think of it?

Now, in the country the stillness is not so mournful--there is a sense
of out-door freedom there. The leaves stir with life on the trees. The
brooks murmur and gurgle and laugh by night as they do by day. The birds
flutter now and then, and the winds whistle and whisper, filling the
night with a stir of life. But here--here in a great city, a ghost-like
policeman, or a poor straggling wretch who has no home but the street,
is all that you see. Indeed, coming home before daybreak isn't a thing I
hanker to do over again.

Well, after pulling at the bell-knob till I'm afraid Cousin Dempster
swore internally, we got into the house, and had a good long sleep
before breakfast.

"I'm so glad you've come," says Cousin E. E., "for the Liederkranz comes
off to-night, and I was afraid we should lose it. Of course you'll go,
Cousin Frost?"

"Well," says I, "perhaps I can tell better when I know what the thing
is. It's a crabbled sort of a word, that might belong to an aligator or
kangaroo; and I don't care overmuch for wild-beast shows, any way."
Cousin E. E. laughed.

"Well," says she, "in some sense you are right. There will be a show of
wild animals such as never roamed in field or forest, but none of them
are dangerous; at any rate, in that form."

"Are they in a circus, and is there a clown with a chalky face and red
patches?" says I.

"The circus!" says she, a-holding up both hands. "Why, it is to be in
the Academy of Music, and the first people in the city are going."

"To see them feed?" says I.

"Well, that may be a part of it, but the principal thing is the parade."

"But where do they feed the animals--not in the boxes with red velvet
cushions, I calculate?"

"Oh, how funny you are! Of course not; the supper is set out in Nilsson
Hall, and is served _a la carte_."

"What!" says I; "do they bring in fodder by the cartload for the
creatures? Now, really, Cousin E. E., there is nothing astonishing about
that to a person born and bred in the country. You and I have ridden on
a load of hay, piled up so high that we had to bend down our heads to
keep from bumping them against the top of the barn door, when the hay
went in to be put on the mow; so we need not see the same thing meached
over here in York."

"Dear me!" said my cousin; "you are just the brightest and stupidest
woman----"

"Young lady, if you please," says I.

"Well, young lady--that I ever set eyes on--can't you comprehend