passed from the garden she involuntarily stopped at the cemetery: she paused in serious reflection:—“Here, said she, in this house of gloom rest, in undisturbed silence, my honourable ancestors, once the active tenants of yonder mansion. Then, throughout these now solitary demesnes, the busy occurrences of life glided in cheerful circles. Then, these now moss-clad alleys, and this wild weedy garden, were the resort of the fashionable and the gay. Then, evening music floated over the fields, while yonder halls and apartments shone in brilliant illumination. Now all is sad, solitary and dreary, the haunt of spirits and spectres of nameless terror. All 109 that now remains of the head that formed, and the hand that executed, and the bosom that relished this once happy scenery, is now, alas, only a heap of dust.” 109 She seated herself on a little hillock, under a weeping willow, which stood near the cemetery, and watched the rising shower, which slowly ascended in gloomy pomp, half hidden behind the western groves, shrouding the low sun in black vapour, while coming thunders more nearly and more awfully rolled. The shrieking night hawk* * Supposed to be the male whippoorwill; well known in the New-England states, and answering to the above peculiarity. soared high into the air, mingling with the lurid van of the approaching storm, which widening, more rapidly advanced, until “the heavens were arrayed in blackness.” * Supposed to be the male whippoorwill; well known in the New-England states, and answering to the above peculiarity. The lightning more broader and brighter flashes, hurling down its forky streaming bolts far in the wilderness, its flaming path followed by the vollying artillery of the skies. Now bending its long, crinkling spires over the vallies, now glimmering along the summit of the hills. Convolving clouds poured smoky volumes through the expansion; adeep, hollow, distant roar, announced the approach of “summoned winds.” The whole forest bowed in awful grandeur, as from its dark bosom rushed the impetuous hurricane, twisting off, or tearing up 110 by the roots, the stoutest trees, whirling the heaviest branches through the air with irresistible fury. It dashed upon the sea, tossed it into irregular mountains, or mingled its white foamy spray with the gloom of the turbid skies. Slant-wise, the large heavy drops of rain began to descend. Melissa hastened to the mansion; as she reached the door a very brilliant flash of lightning, accompanied by a tremendous explosion, alarmed her. A thunder bolt had entered a large elm tree within the
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