house, small and unnotable like the trees. Over all the country
the moon, near full though not high, threw a gentle light; revealing to
the fancy a less picturesque landscape than the sun would have shewn;
for there were no strong lines or points to be made more striking by
her partial touches, and its greatest beauty lay in the details which
she could not light up. The soft and rich colours of grain and grass,
the waving tints of broken ground and hillside, were lost now; the
flowers in the hedges had shrunk into obscurity; the thrifty and
well-to-do order of every field and haystack, could hardly be noted
even by one who knew it was there. Only the white soft glimmer on a
wide pleasant land; the faint lighting of one side of trees and fences,
the broader salutation to a house-front, and the deeper shadow which
sometimes told of a piece of woodland or a slight hilly elevation.

Then all that was passed; and the road descended a little steep to
where it crossed, by a wooden bridge, a small stream or bed of a creek.
Here the moon, now getting up in the sky, did greater execution; the
little winding piece of water glittered in silver patches, and its
sedgy borders were softly touched out; with the darker outlines of two
or three fishing-boats.

And so on, towards the shore. Now the salt smell met and mingled with
the perfume of woods and flowers, and the road grew more and more
sandy. But still the fields waved with Indian-corn, were sweet with
hay, or furrowed with potatoes. Then the outlines of sundry frame
bathing-houses appeared in the distance, and near them the road came to
an end.

The shore was improved by the moonlight,--its great rocks, slippery
with sea-weed, glittered with a wet sheen. The Sound wore its diamonds
royally, and each tiny wave broke in a jewelled light upon the sand.
Far in the distance the dim shore of Long Island lay like a black line
upon the water; and sloops and schooners sailed softly on their course,
or tacked across the rippling waves, a fleet of "Black spirits and
white."

"What do you think of the illumination, Miss Faith?" said her
companion, when they had sat still for five minutes.

"What do you think of it, I think I should say. Mr. Linden, I have
shewed you the shore!"

"You!"--

"Who else?

"Were you ever here before by moonlight?"

"I don't know--No, I think not. Were you ever here before at all?"

"Is it owing to you that I am here now?"

"You couldn't have got h