kless and outrageous than any upon which she had before
ventured.

CHAPTER XXIX.

FIVE MINUTES WITH THE MOONLIGHT--THE LAST SCENE AT JUDGE OWEN'S--CAPT.
SLIVERS, OF THE SICKLES BRIGADE--TWO RIVALS DISGUISED, AND THE RESULT OF
THEIR RENCONTRE.

There was no terrible portent in the air, hanging over the city of New
York on that Thursday evening the Tenth of July, to which allusion has
before been made as the same on which Richard Crawford and his
companions reached Niagara. On the contrary, as some of the summer
tourists may remember, that evening was remarkably and even wondrously
beautiful. Not a clearer full moon ever rose than that which beamed over
nearly the whole of the Northern States that night; and those,
especially, who had the privilege of seeing that moon rise over the brow
of Eagle Cliff at the Franconia Notch of the White Mountains, standing
on the plateau in front of the Profile House and seeing the disk of
glittering silver heaving slowly up beyond the crest, with the great
trees on the summits defined against it so sharply, with the dark
mountain brows frowning and the upturned human faces radiant in the
silver light, and with every aspect and influence of the scene something
wildly and weirdly beautiful--those who enjoyed that privilege will not
be likely soon to lose the memory of one of the loveliest nights that
ever dropped down out of heaven. How many souls, in one place and
another, and under influences akin to those we have named, may have
bowed down that night in worship before denied to the Almighty Hand
that, not content with making a world instinct with life and usefulness,
endowed it with such marvellous beauty! And how many young hearts,
before that hour partial strangers to each other or divided by prudence
or by ignorance, standing under that silver sheen may have acknowledged
the influence of the time, melted into tenderness, and flowed together
to be no more separated forever!

Moonlight is an enchanter as well as a beautifier, and the old fancy of
partial madness when the moon was at the full (from which the word
"lunacy") was not altogether unwarranted by reality. At sea, in the
tropics, a night on deck under the broad full moon stiffens and entirely
maddens, if it does not kill; here the madness is only partial and it
has a general reference to mischief and the opposite sex; but the
influence is the same, under different degrees of development.

On how many lands and wat