III.
THE COLD WEATHER.
“Ah! if to thee
It feels Elysian, how rich to me,
An exiled mortal, sounds its pleasant name!
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let me cool me zephyr-boughs among!”
Endymion.
CHRISTMAS EVE! Overhead is stretched the tent of heaven, and beneath the dome are ranged in full durbar the rajah-planets, attendant on them crowds of courtier-asteroids and stars. The durbar is assembled to welcome Christmas Day. The moon, the Viceroy of the day, presides, and all the feudatory luminaries of the empire are in their places, and the splendor of Hindoo Rájá or Mahomedan Nawab is as nothing to that of Orion. How quiet all is! Not a whisper or a movement as the galaxy of night awaits the arrival of Christmas Day.
I was waiting for it too. The night seemed so still and calm that I felt as if somehow all the rest of the world had stolen away from their homes and gone somewhere, leaving me alone to represent Europe at this reception of Christmas. Not that there were no sounds near me. There was my pony munching gram very audibly, my servants’ hookahs sounded more noisily than usual; the dogs under the tree were gnawing bones,
