“Is _this_ country enough for you, Em.?” inquired John Palmer for the second time, as he looked at his daughter, who was sitting on the ground with her hands clasped around her knees, and with her eyes fixed upon the forest, through whose waving branches, glimmering here and there, could be caught glimpses of the distant river. “Oh, father, it is almost divine! I sometimes wonder if we are not all dead and in Paradise together. Maybe we were all suffocated in our burning house that night, you know, and have come to life in Paradise!” dreamily replied the girl. “Em., hush! you’re crazy!” broke in Susan Palmer. “Well, mother, anyway we _are_ dead to the old life in Laundry Lane, and are risen to this,” said Em., smiling. “_That’s_ what she means, Susan. Law, _I_ understood the girl!” said Palmer heartily. “Oh, yes! I dessay you do, John, and you encourage her in her flights just as you do the little ones in their climbing. The end of which will be you will have a crazy girl and three or four crippled children!” chimed in Ann Whitlock. “No wonder Mr. Comical took her for my mother-in-law!” muttered John to himself. “And now I come to think of it, it is all providential—having no mother-in-law of my own, Mrs. Whitlock fell right into the place to fill up the wacancy! ‘Sich is life!’” laughed John to himself. They sat out under the trees until their early bedtime, and then they all returned to the house. The women and children entered first and retired, and then the man and the boys. Em., not wishing a repetition of her last night’s experience, had made her pallet in the rear of the grand staircase, and close by the back door, which was left wide open for air. As usual with this hard-working and healthy family, as soon as their heads dropped upon their pillows they fell fast asleep. Even Em.—who would have kept her eyes open if she could, for the pleasure of looking out from her pallet through the open door upon the waving trees, the gray rocks beyond and the starlit sky above, soon succumbed to fatigue and slept soundly. The vigils of the last night and the exertions of the past day had completely exhausted the girl, and produced a prolonged sleep of many hours. It must have been very near day when at last she calmly opened her eyes. The moon was shining over the top of the mountain and down through the waving trees and making their shadows dance upon the floor of the hall and on the white quilt of Em.’s pallet. All else was still in the place. “This is beautiful, beautiful,” said the girl, watching the graceful shadows of the leaves dance and fly over her outspread hands. She knew the moon was also shining through the lofty window at the head of the stairs and flooding the stairway and front hall with light where she had seen the radiant vision of the night. She felt glad that she had moved her pallet, for she thought that visions would not be likely to appear anywhere else except in that splendor of light. Hush! What was that?