We will suppose the time to be about six o’clock, P. M. in the last week of August. The sun is about an hour and a half high, and is beginning to throw out rays of the richest and at the same time the softest splendor. A broad beam, like a golden vista, strikes Rumsey’s house on the hill right along the toes, thence, darting a blow athwart the breast of Fairchild’s domicil, it hits St. John’s store right in the abdomen, and then sinks down the slope of the street. This is on one side of the village. On the other, a second beam comes along in a sort of stealthy, zigzag manner, being broken by a row of trees, until, blazes! it pitches into the two lower eyes of Coit’s dingy edifice so violently as to make them flash again. After this feat, it laughs along the verge of the village green, making it wear an edging of gold, and then paints the black picture of the mail-coach before Hamble’s door in such grotesque proportions as to send the head of one horse poking into the middle of the street, and his tail streaming into Cady’s store. And not only this, but the beam sketches the figure of Hamble himself coming from “Saint’s store,” with a bottle of “sour wine” for his bar, in one hand, and a white pitcher brimming with the cool nectar from the “corner well” in the other. Would you believe it? these were the only objects visible in the street. How all the inhabitants had contrived to withhold themselves from sight in this mellow sunset I cannot imagine. But such was the fact. The houses stood protruding their noses of porches at those opposite, and peering into one another’s eyes, with their dark wigs cutting against the soft amber sky—the trees were whispering soft things to one another in a gentle breeze stirring, each one moving its thousand lips so delicately that the sunlight which was kissing them seemed trembling with rapture—in short, an air of quiet solitude brooded over the whole place.