nd the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.

What though, in his old age, he momentarily lost faith in his own
prediction, as prophets in their hours of depression and doubt
generally do; the words had remained eternal testimony to the seership
of a poet's heart, the insight that is given to faith.

I was still in the library when some hours later Dr. Leete sought me
there. "Edith told me of her idea," he said, "and I thought it an
excellent one. I had a little curiosity what writer you would first
turn to. Ah, Dickens! You admired him, then! That is where we moderns
agree with you. Judged by our standards, he overtops all the writers
of his age, not because his literary genius was highest, but because
his great heart beat for the poor, because he made the cause of the
victims of society his own, and devoted his pen to exposing its
cruelties and shams. No man of his time did so much as he to turn
men's minds to the wrong and wretchedness of the old order of things,
and open their eyes to the necessity of the great change that was
coming, although he himself did not clearly foresee it."

CHAPTER XIV.

A heavy rainstorm came up during the day, and I had concluded that the
condition of the streets would be such that my hosts would have to
give up the idea of going out to dinner, although the dining-hall I
had understood to be quite near. I was much surprised when at the
dinner hour the ladies appeared prepared to go out, but without either
rubbers or umbrellas.

The mystery was explained when we found ourselves on the street, for a
continuous waterproof covering had been let down so as to inclose the
sidewalk and turn it into a well lighted and perfectly dry corridor,
which was filled with a stream of ladies and gentlemen dressed for
dinner. At the corners the entire open space was similarly roofed in.
Edith Leete, with whom I walked, seemed much interested in learning
what appeared to be entirely new to her, that in the stormy weather
the streets of the Boston of my day had been impassable, except to
persons protected by umbrellas, boots, and heavy clothing. "Were
sidewalk coverings not used at all?" she asked. They were used, I
explained, but in a scattered and utterly unsystematic way, being
private enterprises. She said to me that at the present time all the
streets were provided against inclement weather in the manner I saw,
the apparatus being rolled out of the way when it was unne