_May 9, Sunday_.--Visit this evening to my friends the J.'s--good
supper, to which I did justice--lively chat with Mrs. J. and I. and
J. As I sat out front on the walk afterward, in the evening air, the
church-choir and organ on the corner opposite gave Luther's hymn, _Ein
feste berg_, very finely. The air was borne by a rich contralto. For
nearly half an hour there in the dark (there was a good string of
English stanzas,) came the music, firm and unhurried, with long pauses.
The full silver star-beams of Lyra rose silently over the church's dim
roof-ridge. Vari-color'd lights from the stain'd glass windows broke
through the tree-shadows. And under all--under the Northern Crown up
there, and in the fresh breeze below, and the _chiaroscuro_ of the
night, that liquid-full contralto.