I love the sound of Nature's happy voice, The music of a summer evening's sky, When all things fair and beautiful rejoice, As though their glory ne'er would fade and die. Sweet is the breeze as 'mid the flowers it sings, Sweet is the melody of falling streams, Sweet is the sky-lark's song as borne on wings Of waving light--a bird of heaven she seems. Oh! for the hours, when wrapt in joy I've sat, And felt that harmony--"_all round my hat!_" SIGMA. THE DEVIL AND JOHNNY DIXON. BY THE AUTHOR OF "STORIES OF WATERLOO." _Arnold._ Your form is man's, and yet you may be the devil. _Stranger._ Unless you keep company with him (and you seem scarce used to such high company) you can't tell how he approaches. _The Deformed Transformed._ I remember having been exceedingly amused by a book of German _diablerie_, in which the movements of his Satanic Majesty were faithfully and fashionably chronicled. He had chosen, it would appear, for good and cogent reasons, to revisit our earth _incognito_; and as potentates steal occasionally a glance at the world to see how things move in their ordinary courses, he too indulged his princely curiosity, and, _selon la règle_, during his travels assumed a borrowed title. I had business to transact in a very remote district of the kingdom of Connaught, and, as some delay was unavoidable, I threw a few books carelessly into my portmanteau. Among them the wild conception of Hoffmann, entitled "The Devil's Elixir," was included; and in the perusal of that strange tale, I endeavoured to amuse the tedium of as wet a day as often comes in Connemara. Bad as the morning had been, the evening was infinitely worse: the wind roared through the mountains; the rain came down in torrents; and every unhappy wayfarer pushed hastily for the nearest inn. I had been an occupant of the best (and only) parlour of Tim Corrigan during the preceding week; and so unfrequent were the calls at his caravansera, that, like Robinson Crus, I could stroll out upon the moor, and proclaim that I was absolute over heath and "hostelrie." But, on this night, two travellers were driven to the "Cock and Punchbowl." They were bound for a fair that was to be holden on the morrow some twenty miles off; and, although anxious to lodge themselves in some more contiguous hostel, the weather became so desperate, that by mutual consent they abandoned their intention, and resolved to ensconce themselves for the night in a double-bedded room, which, fortunately for them, happened to be unoccupied in the "Cock and Punchbowl."