Perhaps the air of sea and mountain had got into the
blood, and infected it with a certain disrelish for the restraints, the
even decorum, and the tamer surroundings of our life in the Midlands.
Well, we are not the only emigrants who have preferred their backwoods to
the streets of the mother city, nor the first campaigners who have come
back to home-quarters a trifle spoiled by adventure. And, moreover,
while everything about us was a reminder of what we must forego, there
was nothing to tell us of what a greeting our townsmen were preparing for
us, or of the solid mutual good which filled the vista beyond that
auspicious welcome.
However, alike for those who were impatient and those who were half
reluctant to attain it, the equal-handed hours brought the end of our
exile. On one of our last evenings, April 6th, a reading was given in
the school-room, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" with Mendelssohn's music; no
unfit close, we said, to our _annns mirabilis_. For, indeed, its
incidents had been "such stuff as dreams are made of," as whimsical if
not quite as harmless, as if their plot had been directed by the blithe
goblin of Shakespeare's fantasy.
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