And now as if the cleaning and the scrubbing andthe scything and the mowing had drowned it thererose that half-heard melody, that intermittent musicwhich the ear half catches but lets fall; a bark, ableat; irregular, intermittent, yet somehow related;the hum of an insect, the tremor of cut grass,dissevered yet somehow belonging; the jar of ador beetle, the squeak of a wheel, loud, low, butmysteriously related; which the ear strains to bringtogether and is always on the verge of harmonizingbut they are never quite heard, never fully har-monized, and at last, in the evening, one afteranother the sounds die out, and the harmony falters,and silence falls. With the sunset sharpness waslost, and like mist rising, quiet rose, quiet spread, thewind settled; loosely the world shook itself down tosleep, darkly here without a light to it, save whatcame green suffused through leaves, or pale on thewhite flowers by the window.

Then indeed peace had come. Messages of peacebreathed from the sea to the shore. Never to breakits sleep any more, to lull it rather more deeply torest and whatever the dreamers dreamt holily,dreamt wisely, to confirm—what else was it mur-