In a short time, the sounds of footsteps ceased in the Hut; and, one unacquainted with the real state of the household, might have fancied that the peace and security of one of its ancient midnights were reigning about the Knoll.

At midnight the Nawab's eunuch came to inform Law that the English had been repulsed with loss, and on the morning of the 16th the Nawab's troops were ordered to advance, but when the same day news came that the French had withdrawn into the Fort, every one cried out that the Fort must fall, and that it was mere folly to incense the English by sending down troops.

"A hardened and shameless tea-drinker," Johnson called himself, who "with tea amuses the evenings, with tea solaces the midnights, and with tea welcomes the mornings."

The force of the stroke was alone strong enough to send the knife flying; but, by the addition of a bit of good luck, Pretty caught the wretch on his crazy bone, and set him to such a caterwauling as cats sing of midnights on a back-yard fence.

Will you meet me in this place at midnight tomorrow?"

THE MIDNIGHT MEETING.

Often have I heard him invoke me in accents of the wildest despair, and have floated past him on the midnight breeze, but could neither impart consolation to him nor make him sensible of my presence, because his grief was sinful.

As the hour of midnight was tolled forth by the neighbouring churches, he heard footsteps, and could just detect a figure advancing towards him.

And, as the Indian traders have assembled on the spot, the more improvident of the party immediately proceed to exhibit their sugar and furs, which are usually disposed of for flour and pork, blankets and knives, guns, ammunition, and a great variety of trinkets, long before the hour of midnight.

They may be heard through the day, if one listens, like a solemn undertone to all the shallow noises of the town; but at midnight, when all else is still, those successive shocks fall upon the ear with a sensation of inexpressible solemnity.

It looks just as bad as it is; round, only seven paces across, yet so obscure that our tapers could not illuminate it from side to side,the stones of which it is constructed being as black as midnight.

There sounds the sweet, low, long-continued trill of the little hair-bird, or chipping-sparrow, a suggestion of insect sounds in sultry summer, and produced, like them, by a slight fluttering of the wings against the sides: by-and-by we shall sometimes hear that same delicate rhythm burst the silence of the June midnights, and then, ceasing, make stillness more still.

It is only your pseudo-saint, who cuddles himself for the pulpit and the platform, and keeps the safety-valve down with midnight sittings while "rosining up" the furnaces with strong coffee, that will come to grief by collapse of flues.

After tormenting the wearied old man in this way until nearly midnight he permitted him to go to his quarters.

About midnight the horizon began to be overcast; and the darkness increased until in the thick forest, I could scarcely see a yard before me.

After midnight, I passed near a large house, with fruit trees around it.

I'll conceal myself fifty or sixty yards from camp, and if we have visitors before midnight the fun will all be mine.

He had planned not to awaken old Donald at midnight, but MacDonald roused himself, and came to take his place a little before twelve.

The next, their fifth, his watch was from midnight until morning.

It was at the deep midnight hour when he announced his mysterious presence, by laying his icy hand and spreading his marble paleness over the form of the departing sister.

There had been a ceremony at midnight in the Church of St. Sulpice, and her Excellency the Baroness Stahl, née de St. Cyr, accompanied him.

Surrounded by the body-guard we have seen, through all the years 1816, 1817, and 1818, now in Venezuela, now in New Granada, in the Plains to-day, in the mountains to-morrow, enduring every privation, braving odds apparently the most overwhelming, fighting pitched battles at midnight, and triumphantly effecting surprises in the open day, he maintained alive, in the midst of general discouragement, the cause he had espoused.

ENVOI Sweet mortal maid, that fairy world of yore Has vanished, with the midnights that are o'er; Yet come and sit beside the stream with me, That I, beholding thee, may say, "Once more The Queen of Elfland holds her revelry.

There are flashes struck from midnights, There are fireflames noondays kindle, Whereby piled-up honors perish.

" And far as the eye of God could see Darkness covered everything, Blacker than a hundred midnights Down in a cypress swamp.