the air with such mixtures as no other day but Sunday, when all artificial and human sounds cease, could ever hear.  Every now and then a bobolink seemed impressed with the duty of bringing these jangling birds into more regularity; and like a country singing-master, he flew down the ranks, singing all the parts himself in snatches, as if to stimulate and help the laggards.  In vain!  Sunday is the birds’ day, and they will have their own democratic worship.

There was no sound in the village street.  Look either way—­not a vehicle, not a human being.  The smoke rose up soberly and quietly, as if it said—­It is Sunday!  The leaves on the great elms hung motionless, glittering in dew, as if they too, like the people who dwelt under their shadow, were waiting for the bell to ring for meeting.  Bees sung and flew as usual; but honey-bees have a Sunday way with them all the week, and could scarcely change for the better on the seventh day.

But oh, the Sun!  It had sent before and cleared every stain out of the sky.  The blue heaven was not dim and low, as on secular days, but curved and deep, as if on Sunday it shook off all incumbrance which during the week had lowered and flattened it, and sprang back to the arch and symmetry of a dome.  All ordinary sounds caught the spirit of the day.  The shutting of a door sounded twice as far as usual.  The rattle of a bucket in a neighbor’s yard, no longer mixed with heterogeneous noises, seemed a new sound.  The hens went silently about, and roosters crowed in psalm-tunes.  And when the first bell rung, Nature seemed overjoyed to find something that it might do without breaking Sunday, and rolled the sound over and over, and pushed it through the air, and raced with it over field and hill, twice as far as on week-days.  There were no less than seven steeples in sight from the belfry, and the sexton said:—­“On still Sundays I’ve heard the bell, at one time and another, when the day was fair, and the air moving in the right way, from every one of them steeples, and I guess likely they’ve all heard our’n.”

“Come, Rose!” said Agate Bissell, at an even earlier hour than when Rose usually awakened—­“Come, Rose, it is the Sabbath.  We must not be late Sunday morning, of all days in the week.  It is the Lord’s day.”

There was little preparation required for the day.  Saturday night, in some parts of New England, was considered almost as sacred as Sunday itself.  After sundown on Saturday night no play, and no work except such as is immediately preparatory to the Sabbath, were deemed becoming in good Christians.  The clothes had been laid out the night before.  Nothing was forgotten.  The best frock was ready; the hose and shoes were waiting.  Every article of linen, every ruffle and ribbon, were selected on Saturday night.  Every one in the house walked mildly.  Every one spoke in a low tone.  Yet all were cheerful.  The mother had on her kindest face, and nobody laughed,