Page:Sylvester Sound the Somnambulist (1844).djvu/39

, proposed a ride round the adjoining park. Sylvester of course consented at once, and when the pastor's horse had been sent for, and Aunt Eleanor's pony had been saddled, they started, and after riding until the moon rose, the reverend gentleman saw him safely home, and bade him adieu for the night.

soft and serene is the harvest moon!—how calm, how beautiful, how bright! When all around is tranquil and clear, and the nightingale sings in her sweetest strain, how touching the tones of endearment sound! who would not kiss? who could not love? Then Night discards her sombre veil, and—mounting her white one studded with brilliants—celebrates that lovely morn when she became the bride of Day.

Now these few important remarks have been suggested by two most extraordinary facts, namely that on the first night that Sylvester slept at the cottage, the harvest moon was at the full, and that about twelve o'clock that very night, Aunt Eleanor's cook heard a noise. She and Mary—they slept together—had been in bed nearly two hours; but cook was twenty years Mary's senior, and, being afflicted with pains in the joints, was far more wakeful than Mary, who invariably buried herself in the clothes, and slept away profoundly.

And the difference between the various species of sheep is amazing: some will sleep quietly, others very noisily—some very lightly, others very heavily—some very sweetly, others very wildly—some very languidly, others very soundly—but without going into any deeply philosophical treatise on sleep, it will be, perhaps, sufficient here to state that a bedfellow's snore is a most unique nuisance, and that anything equal to Mary's snore in the annals of snoring could never be found.

"Mary!" whispered cook, when she first heard the noise, "Mary!—Did you hear that?—Mary!—Are you dead?"

That the question—"Are you dead?" was supererogatory, is a fact which must, it is submitted, be to every highly intellectual person apparent: inasmuch as in the first place a question implies the expectation of an answer, and in the next it is perfectly well known to the intelligent that dead individuals never snore. This affords another sad and unequivocal proof of the lamentable want of education. Had this cook been conversant with the classics, she never could have asked such a question; but as she knew nothing at all about them—and moreover didn't want to know—she not only put this question to Mary, but announced it as being her unbought opinion that the girl really was dead!—she slept so soundly and snored so well.