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over the only tune he knew, his one sweet poignant melody—“all in vain, all in vain, all in vain;” the two sheep-dogs yawned and stretched themselves, and looked reproachfully at the horses; and the sunset faded over the blue fields of the Pacific, and left only a faint rosy glow on the far immeasurable snow-peaks that floated between sea and sky at the other side of the bay.

In almost every lifetime there comes a pause now and then when the noises of this world and the roar of its streets die away into silence; moments when we attain the power of seeing the invisible, and hearing the “incommunicable song” of our dreams; moments that the poet and the musician are ever striving to arrest. Sometimes this visitation seizes us while listening to some strain of intensely sad music, whose sadness nevertheless causes us no distress, but rather moves a deeper feeling than delight; or it may be in gazing upon some snow-sheeted, unattainable mountain-peak; or perhaps in the secret pang of self-renunciation unnoticed or misunderstood by all around. All too soon the illumination fades away, but it has taught us much that can never be forgotten. Such a moment came to Alice amid the rustling branches of the primeval forest; and it was