le wings lifted
from their palpitating sides. The multitudinous shrilling of the
grasshoppers adds emphasis to the white heats of the air. Even the
housefly seeks the shade and hums drowsily in complicated orbits about
the upper part of the room, or, with too keen proboscis, destroys my
last crumb of comfort, the post-prandial nap.

My eyes open upon a world that dreams. The trees stand motionless. Among
their tops the bull-bat darts erratically. The pale star of thistledown
mounts on some mysterious current, like an infant soul departing
heavenward. The hum of the near city is hushed. The sound of the
church-bells is muffled. The trumpeting of the steamer comes from the
bay, as though some lone sea-monster called aloud for companionship.
There is a sudden rattle and roar as a train rushes by, and then the
smoke drifts away over the glowing landscape.

But there is an increasing opaque dimness in the western horizon that
steadily deepens in color. Fleece-like clouds rapidly increase in height
and density, and a sheet of pale flame flashes from the midst and is
gone. A glowing, crinkly line marks the edge of the cloud, and
disappears.

Now swallows soar far up in the sky, the doves make wild, uncertain
flights above the steeples, and the hoarse trumpet of the steamer again
calls for recognition. At the west another bright line falls, zigzag, to
a distant hill, revealed an instant, then lost in the shadow of the
cloud. Soon there is a low, momentary rumble, and you are assured that
the swift, delightful, dangerous shower, that cools the earth without
interrupting our pleasures for dreary days, is approaching. No one whose
dwelling is not better protected than most of those which bear the vain
and flimsy decorations called "lightning-rods" can know whether his own
house may not in a few moments receive a ruinous stroke, or that it may
not be his lot to enter eternity with the first flash from that dark,
towering mass of sulphurous hue that already casts its ominous shadow
upon his face.

Timid persons should experience gladness rather than alarm at the sound
of the thunder and the flash of the lightning, both being signals that
personal danger is past for the time. Persons who have been struck and
rendered insensible, but who have afterward recovered, had not seen or
heard what hurt them. Unless we are acquainted with the locality, and
know the points likely to receive the fiery bolt; if a disruptive
discharge occurs