Flashed like the plane-tree the Persian adorned with mantles and jewels.

Now recommenced the reign of rest and affection and stillness.

Day with its burden and heat had departed, and twilight descending

Brought back the evening star to the sky, and the herds to the homestead.

Pawing the ground they came, and resting their necks on each other,

And with their nostrils distended inhaling the freshness of evening.

Foremost, bearing the bell, Evangeline's beautiful heifer,

Proud of her snow-white hide, and the ribbon that waved from her collar,

Quietly paced and slow, as if conscious of human affection.

Then came the shepherd back with his bleating flocks from the sea-side,

Where was their favorite pasture.

them followed the watch-dog,

Behind

Patient, full of importance, and grand in the pride of his instinct,

Walking from side to side with a lordly air, and superbly

Waving his bushy tail, and urging forward the stragglers;

Regent of flocks was he when the shepherd slept; their protector,

When from the forest at night, through the starry silence, the wolves howled.

Late, with the rising moon, returned the wains from the marshes,

Laden with briny hay, that filled the air with its odor.

Cheerily neighed the steeds, with dew on their manes and their fetlocks,

While aloft on their shoulders the wooden and ponderous saddles,

Painted with brilliant dyes, and adorned with tassels of crimson,

Nodded in bright array, like hollyhocks heavy with blossoms.

Patiently stood the cows meanwhile, and yielded their udders

Unto the milkmaid's hand; whilst loud and in regular cadence

Into the sounding pail the foaming streamlets descended.

Lowing of cattle and peals of laughter were heard in the farm-yard,

Echoed back by the barns. Anon they sank into stillness;

Heavily closed, with a creaking sound, the valves of the barn-doors,

Rattled the wooden bars, and all for a season was silent.

In-doors, warm by the wide-mouth fireplace, idly the farmer

Sat in his elbow-chair, and watched how the flames and the smoke-wreaths

Struggled together like foes in a burning city. Behind him,

Nodding and mocking along the wall, with gestures fantastic,

Darted his own huge shadow, and vanished away into darkness.

Faces, clumsily carved in oak, on the back of his arm-chair

Laughed in the flickering light, and the pewter plates on the dresser

Caught and reflected the flame, as shields of armies the sunshine.

Fragments of song the old man sang, and carols of Christmas,

Such as at home, in the olden time, his fathers before him

Sang in their Norman orchards and bright Burgundian vineyards.

Close at her father's side was the gentle Evangeline seated,

Spinning flax for the loom, that stood in the corner behind her.

Silent awhile were its treadles, at rest was its diligent shuttle,

While the monotonous drone of the wheel, like the drone of a bagpipe,

Followed the old man's song, and united the fragments together.

As in a church, when the chant of the choir at interval ceases,

Footfalls are heard in the aisles, or words of the priest at the altar,

So, in each pause of the song, with measured motion the clock clicked.

Thus as they sat, there were footsteps heard, and, suddenly lifted,

Sounded the wooden latch, and the door swung back on its hinges.

Benedict knew by the hob-nailed shoes it was Basil the blacksmith,

And by her beating heart Evangeline knew who was with him.

"Welcome!" the farmer exclaimed, as their footsteps paused on the threshold,

"Welcome, Basil, my friend! Come, take thy place on the settle

Close by the chimney-side, which is always empty without thee;

Take from the shelf overhead thy pipe and the box of tobacco;

Never so much thyself art thou as when, through the curling

Smoke of the pipe or the forge, thy friendly and jovial face gleams,

Round and red as the harvest moon through the mist of the marshes."

Then, with a smile of content, thus answered Basil the blacksmith,