The setting sun beamed in golden light over the country; long shadows lay on the cool grass; the birds, which had been silent through the sultry heat of the day, sang their joyous evening hymn: the merry voices of the village children sounded through the clear air, while their fathers loitered about enjoying the luxury of rest after labor. A sun-burned traveler, with dusty shoes, walked sturdily along the high road: he was young and strong, and his ruddy cheeks glowed in the warm light: he carried his baggage on a stick over his shoulder, and looked straight on toward the cottages of the village; and you might see, by the expression of his face, that his eye was earnestly watching for the first glimpse of the home that lay among them, to which he was returning. The same setting sun threw his golden beams over the great metropolis: they lighted up streets, and squares, and parks, whence crowds were retiring from business or pleasure to their various places of abode or gay parties: they pierced even through the smoke of the city, and gilded its great central dome; but when they reached the labyrinth of lanes and courts which it incloses, their radiance was gone, for noxious vapors rose there after the heat of the day, and quenched them. The summer sun is dreaded in those places. The dusky light found its way with difficulty through a small and dim window into an upper room of a house in one of these lanes, and any one entering it would at first have thought it was void of any living inhabitant, had not the restless tossing and oppressed breathing that proceeded from a bed in one corner borne witness to the contrary. A weak sickly boy lay there, his eye fixed on the door. It opened, and he started up in bed; but at the sight of another boy, a few years older than himself, who came in alone, he sunk back again, crying in a plaintive voice, "Don't you see her coming yet?" "No, she is not in sight: I ran to the corner of the lane, and could see nothing of her," replied the elder boy, who, as he spoke, knelt down before the grate, and began to arrange some sticks in it. Every thing in the room bespoke poverty; yet there was an appearance of order, and as much cleanliness as can be attained in such an abode. Among the scanty articles of furniture there was one object that was remarkable as being singularly out of place, and apparently very useless there: it was a large paper kite, that hung from a nail on the wall, and nearly reached from the low ceiling to the floor. "There's eight o'clock just struck, John," said the little boy in bed. "Go and look once more if mother's not coming yet." "It's no use looking, Jem. It won't make her come any faster; but I'll go to please you." "I hear some one on the stairs." "It's only Mrs. Willis going into the back-room." "Oh dear, dear, what _shall_ I do?"