"The flying gold of the ruined woodlands" drives through the air, the signal is given, and there is no longer "quiet on the Potomac." The unnatural calm gives way to an unearthly din. Once more I bring myself to bear on the furniture and the trumpery, and there is a small household whirlpool. All that went before "pales its ineffectual fires." Now comes the strain upon my temper, and my temper bends, and quivers, and creaks, and cracks. Ithuriel touches me with his spear; all the integuments of my conventional, artificial, and acquired gentleness peel off, and I stand revealed a savage. Everything around me sloughs off its usual habitude and becomes savage. Looking-glasses are shivered by the dozen. A bit is nicked out of the best China sugar-bowl. A pin gets under the matting that is wrapped around the centre-table and jags horrible hieroglyphics over the whole polished surface. The bookcase that we are trying to move tilts, and trembles, and goes over, and the old house through all her frame gives signs of woe. A crash detonate on the stairs brings me up from the depths of the closet where I am burrowing. I remember seeing Petronius disappear a moment ago with my lovely and beloved marble Hebe in his arms. I rush rampant to the upper landing in time to see him couchant on the lower. "I have broken my leg," roars Petronius, as if I cared for his leg. A fractured leg is easily mended; but who shall restore me the nose of my nymph, marred into irremediable deformity and dishonor? Occasionally a gleam of sunshine shoots athwart the darkness to keep me back from rash deeds. Behind the sideboard I find a little cross of dark, bright hair and gold and pearls, that I lost two years ago and would not be comforted. O happy days woven in with the dark, bright hair! O golden, pearly days, come back to me again! "Never mind your gewgaws," interposes real life; "what is to be done with the things in this drawer?" Lying atop of a heap of old papers in the front-yard, waiting the match that is to glorify them into flame, I find a letter that mysteriously disappeared long since and caused me infinite alarm lest indelicate eyes might see it and indelicate hands make ignoble use of its honest and honorable meaning. I learn also sundry new and interesting facts in mechanics. I become acquainted for the first time with the _modus operandi_ of "roller-cloths." I never understood before how the roller got inside the towel. It was one of those gentle domestic mysteries that repel even while they invite investigation. I shall not give the result of my discovery to the public. If you wish very much to find out, you can move, as I did. But the rifts of sunshine disappear, the clouds draw together and close in. The savage walks abroad once more, and I go to bed tired of life.