There is many a light thing that we cherish,--with which we will not
easily part. That souvenir of some dear, dead one we do not value by its
weight in gold; that sweet story of the Vicar we do not measure by its
breadth of logic. And no American, no matter how late born he may be,
but, if he wander in the Catskills, shall hear the rumble of the Dutch
revellers at their bowling in the gorges of the mountains,--not one but
shall read, and reading shall love, the story of Rip Van Winkle.
It was only a quiet old gentleman of six-and-seventy who was buried
awhile ago from his home upon the Hudson: yet the village-shops were all
closed; the streets, the houses, the station, were hung in black;
thousands from the city thirty miles away thronged the high-road leading
to the little church where prayers were to be said.
How shall we explain this? The author is dead, indeed, whose writings
were admired by all; but there is something worthier to be said than
this:--At the little church lay the body of the man whom all men loved.
THE RIM.
PART II.
Affairs went smoothly and noiselessly on for some three months. Mr. St.
George had received the congratulations of the neighborhood, who,
perceiving that Eloise still remained at The Rim, presumed all was
satisfactory; and Eloise refused herself to all, the better by reason of
her term of mourning.
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