I have lifted my head again. The yachts are coming in full split. As each comes up, the steamboats and vessels give a yell that makes the sea tremble, and scares all the birds in the neighborhood. One time they shriek--that is for the _Gracie_. Then there was a deep, long howl--that was for the _Jantha_. Then there was a yell, a shriek, and a howl, all together, which was for the _Vixen_. What yacht beat, I don't pretend to know, but it comes to me as if in a hideous dream that it was the _Vixen_. The next thing I have on my mind was, a table set out in the cabin, and the popping of corks from long bottles, with a sound that made me quiver all over. Then I recollect that some one was persecuting me with offers of something nice to eat, for which I shall loath them as long as I live. Sisters, I did _not_ see a single ocean wave thirty feet high--far from it--but those I did see were quite high enough. If you don't believe me, go to a yacht race, that's all. LXXII. MUSIC THAT IS MUSIC. Dear sisters:--I love music. My soul was brought up on Old Hundred, and refreshed from time to time with Yankee Doodle. The lively tones of a fiddle drove me wild with delight, in my foolish, school-girl days; and I cannot keep my feet still when one rattles of money-musk or the Opera Reel even now, when enthusiasm is delicately toned down into graceful ease. The truth is, Nature is full of music, and we who live in a mountainous country know how much of it is to be found outside of instruments and the human voice. In fact, the sweetest music I ever heard has come to me through the woods--not from the birds, but the whispering leaves. Have you ever listened--with your heart--and learned, by the faintest sound, the different voices of the trees--the quick, soft rustle of the maple; the stronger sound of the oak-leaves; the weird, ghostly shiver of the pine-needles? I know little of music, if anything out of heaven can touch a human soul more tenderly than these sounds. Then the birds--what joyous or solemn music they can make! Have you never felt your heart leap to the singing of a robin among the branches of an apple-tree in full blossom, or shiver and grow sad at sunset, when the cry of a lonely whip-poor-will comes wailing through the dusk? There is the music of trees in the spring, when their blossoms are sweet and their leaves are just unfolding--soft, cheerful, happy music, full of tenderness and love. Then there is the low, drowsy music of the summer-time, when bumble-bees and lady-bugs and humming-birds fill the warm air with greedy droning as they plunder the wild flowers of honey. Did you never close your eyes, half go to sleep, and listen to them, with a lazy consciousness that you could rest and enjoy, while those little, busy creatures were singing at their work? I have, a thousand times.