a region where the shepherd or the herdsman was the only
evidence of human existence. It was thither, a grateful spot at such an
hour, that Miss Temple and her companion directed their steps. The last
beam of the sun flashed across the flaming horizon as they gained the
terrace; the hills, well wooded, or presenting a bare and acute outline
to the sky, rose sharply defined in form; while in another direction
some more distant elevations were pervaded with a rich purple tint,
touched sometimes with a rosy blaze of soft and flickering light. The
whole scene, indeed, from the humble pasture-land that was soon to
creep into darkness, to the proud hills whose sparkling crests were yet
touched by the living beam, was bathed with lucid beauty and luminous
softness, and blended with the glowing canopy of the lustrous sky. But
on the terrace and the groves that rose beyond it, and on the glades and
vistas into which they opened, fell the full glory of the sunset. Each
moment a new shadow, now rosy, now golden, now blending in its shifting
tints all the glory of the iris, fell over the rich pleasure-grounds,
their groups of rare and noble trees, and their dim or glittering
avenues.

The vespers of the birds were faintly dying away, the last low of the
returning kine sounded over the lea, the tinkle of the sheep-bell
was heard no more, the thin white moon began to gleam, and Hesperus
glittered in the fading sky. It was the twilight hour!

That delicious hour that softens the heart of man, what is its magic?
Not merely its beauty; it is not more beautiful than the sunrise. It is
its repose. Our tumultuous passions sink with the sun, there is a
fine sympathy between us and our world, and the stillness of Nature is
responded to by the serenity of the soul.

At this sacred hour our hearts are pure. All worldly cares, all those
vulgar anxieties and aspirations that at other seasons hover like
vultures over our existence, vanish from the serene atmosphere of our
susceptibility. A sense of beauty and a sentiment of love pervade our
being. But if at such a moment solitude is full of joy, if, even when
alone, our native sensibility suffices to entrance us with a tranquil
yet thrilling bliss, how doubly sweet, how multiplied must be our fine
emotions, when the most delicate influence of human sympathy combines
with the power and purity of material and moral nature, and completes
the exquisite and enchanting spell!

Ferdinand Armine turn