was but an accustomed measure, one more added to the myriad other sounds
that make up the buzz of life, and help, like each separate note of a
chord, to complete the varied murmur which is the voice of "a whole city
full."

But of course there were times when it was specially apt to strike
home--in the early morning, for instance, when the mind was fresh and hope
was strong enough to interpret the assurance into a promise of joy; and
again at noon, when fatigue was growing and the mind perceived a
sympathetic melancholy in the tones which was altogether restful; but it
was at midnight it had most power. It seemed to rise then to the last
pitch of enthusiasm, sounding triumphant, like the special effort that
finishes a strain, as if to speed the departing interval of time; but when
it rang again, after the first hour of the new day, its voice had dropped,
as it were, to that tone of indifference which expresses the accustomed
doing of some monotonous duty which has become too much of a habit to
excite either pleasure or pain. To the tired watcher then, for whom the
notes were mere tones conveying no idea, the soft melancholy cadence,
dulled by distance, was like the half-stifled echo of her own last stifled
sigh.

It is likely, however, that the chime failed less of its effect outside
the city than it did within; but there again it depended upon the hearer.
When the mellow tones floated above the heath where the gipsies camped,
only one, perchance, might listen, lifting her bright eyes with pleasure
and longing in them, dumbly, as a child might, yet showing for a moment
some glimmering promise of a soul. But to many in the village close at
hand the chime brought comfort. It seemed to assure the sick, counting the
slow hours, that they were not forsaken, and helped them to bear their
pain with patience; it seemed to utter to the wayworn a word which told